THE DAILY RANT

Last Photo For Today

2008-04-09T18:06:00.001-07:00

One More

2008-04-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

3rd New Post

2008-04-09T18:00:00.001-07:00

2nd New Post

2008-04-09T17:51:00.002-07:00

1st New Post In Ages

2008-04-09T17:51:00.001-07:00

Arpaio starts 2-week mandatory English classes for inmates

2006-10-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

Arpaio starts 2-week mandatory English classes for inmates
Mike CroninThe Arizona RepublicOct. 24, 2006 12:00 AM
Go directly to jail. Do pass a competency exam. Non-English-speaking inmates in Maricopa County jails began mandatory English classes on Monday. At the end of their two-week course, inmates must take a test to see how well they learned about American government, the words to God Bless America and the communication of health and safety needs.

"These inmates happen to be incarcerated in the United States of America and in Maricopa County where I run the jails," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in a statement. "And we speak English here, not foreign languages."Classes will last two hours a day. The curriculum comprises the three branches of government, how a bill becomes law, state government, law enforcement and court services, and jailhouse "situational" terminology. Most students will be native-Spanish speakers. Of the 10,000 prisoners in Maricopa County jails, about 3,000 are Hispanic, including roughly 1,000 undocumented immigrants.
Click on the link to see the source: Arpaio starts 2-week mandatory English classes for inmates

7-Eleven Dumps Citgo

2006-09-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

By DAVID KOENIG, AP Business Writer

7-Eleven Inc. is dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier after more than 20 years as part of a previously announced plan by the convenience store operator to launch its own brand of fuel.

7-Eleven officials said Wednesday that the company's decision was partly motivated by politics.

Citgo Petroleum Corp. is a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-run oil company and 7-Eleven is worried that anti-American comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might prompt motorists to fill-up elsewhere.

Chavez has called President George W. Bush the devil and an alcoholic. The U.S. government has warned that Chavez is a destabilizing force in Latin America.

"Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president," said 7-Eleven spokeswoman Margaret Chabris.

"Certainly Chavez's position and statements over the past year or so didn't tempt us to stay with Citgo," she added.

Instead, 7-Eleven, which sells gasoline at 2,100 of its 5,300 U.S. stores, will now purchase fuel from several distributors, including Tower Energy Group of Torrance, Calif., Sinclair Oil of Salt Lake City, and Houston-based Frontier Oil Corp.

Click on the link to read the full story http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060927/ap_on_bi_ge/7_eleven_citgo

Service Before Self!!!!!

2006-09-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

Honolulu Advertiser
September 25, 2006

Amputee Wins Fight To Remain In Infantry

By William Cole, Advertiser Military Writer

Sgt. Brandon Wooldridge is a true Army grunt, a ground-pounder who liked jumping over walls and being in the thick of things in Iraq.

The Schofield Barracks soldier likely will have to go back to the country.

But there was his "situation" to deal with - the fact that his left leg now ends 6 inches below the knee. From there down it's carbon fiber and titanium sheathed in his desert combat boot.

The 25-year-old's calf was blown off in a firefight in Iraq in late 2004. Doctors amputated his lower leg.

For more than a year and a half, Wooldridge fought and finally won a separate battle - for the right to return to what is now a Stryker brigade unit as a frontline soldier. He said he wouldn't object to going back to Iraq.

"That's what I enlisted for. That's where my friends are going, and I want to be with them when they go," he said.

Wooldridge figures his combat experience can help his soldiers and others.

Over time, the North Carolina man has moved beyond the loss of his leg and foot. His prosthesis became just another piece of equipment that he doesn't advertise and some other soldiers don't know about.

His "fit for duty" status came from an Army Medical Evaluation Board in late July.

"Most of it came with my ability to march and run and be able to do the things with - if you want to call it a handicap - with my situation," Wooldridge said. "I believe that's what helped."

The U.S. military tells many amputee service members they can return to duty if they want to, but the reality is Wooldridge beat the odds.

According to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., as of Sept. 1 there were 468 service members with limb loss from fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.

As of April 18, 195 of those service members had completed the Medical Evaluation Board process and Physical Evaluation Board process. Thirty-four were listed as continued on active duty, continued on active Reserve, fit for duty or return to duty.

'I want to stay in army'

Col. William J. Howard III, who was chief of occupational therapy at Walter Reed and now holds the same position at Tripler Army Medical Center, said to stay infantry "is pretty unique," and there are only a handful of soldiers with limb loss making that choice.

"It's hard," Howard said, "and if you're a young person who has the rest of their life in front of them, it's sometimes easier to be medically boarded (out of the military) and do something different."

Maj. David M. Rozelle lost a leg in Iraq, returned to combat there, and now works at the amputee center at Walter Reed. "If they want to go (back to a frontline unit), they can go, but nobody wants to hinder their unit," he said.

But Howard remembers the conversation he had with Wooldridge when the soldier arrived at Walter Reed for treatment and rehabilitation.

"In Brandon's case, he was clear, from the first day we worked together, (and I asked,) 'What do you want to do?' " Howard recalls. " 'I want to stay in the Army,' " was Wooldridge's answer. Further, he wanted to remain infantry.

Wooldridge wanted to make the Army his career. On Nov. 13, 2004, however, Iraqi insurgents made that ambition a little harder.

The 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry "Wolfhound," was in a three-Humvee convoy in the northern tip of the Sunni Triangle, about 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk, when he and fellow Schofield soldiers came under heavy fire.

"There was a lot of stuff they had fired. A few (rocket-propelled grenades). Some people said there might have been a roadside bomb. Lot of heavy machine-gun fire," Wooldridge said last year.

Manning an M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon in the open-backed Humvee, Wooldridge remembers, he first took cover and then quickly returned fire over the makeshift armor hung on the wooden side rails of the vehicle.

He's not sure what hit him. He believes it was a rocket-propelled grenade blast. Whatever it was, it tore out his calf.

Determined to keep up

On Friday, the married father of two kids was sprawled on his stomach at Pu'uloa training range in full combat gear with 19 other soldiers conducting shooting practice. He walks with a slight limp.

"He can perform physically fine," said Staff Sgt. Stephen Novak, 32, who was Wooldridge's squad leader in Iraq. On Friday, Novak was safety coach at the range where Wooldridge was shooting.

"It's up to him how far he wants to excel or push himself," Novak said. "Yeah, he has limitations, but it's not like he's the weakest link in the chain."

Evaluations of his progress were forwarded to Fort Lewis, Wash., for review, but Wooldridge did not have to appear before a Medical Evaluation Board.

"I just had to continue to do the same things that everybody else was doing without falling back," he said.

If his request to remain infantry had been denied, Wooldridge said he could have appealed to the Physical Evaluation Board.

Wooldridge said he received "100 percent support" from his chain of command and doctors and therapists he worked with, but that also came with hard work on his part.

On eight-mile road marches, he's in the middle of the pack, he said. His unit does five-mile runs on Mondays. He has proved himself in an eight-mile competition with stops along the way where soldiers had to perform different soldiering skills.

Wooldridge has four "legs" - for running, swimming, high-intensity activity and road marching.

A big plus is that his injury was below the knee.

"It's a huge advantage," Tripler's Howard said. "If you have a knee, your ability to ambulate is much better."

Loving support

There's still the matter of Wooldridge's re-enlistment to work out. He put in a re-enlistment contract before his injury. But afterward, he said, the Army would not go through with it until he was found fit for duty.

He would have re-enlisted in Iraq, and was supposed to get a tax-free $20,000 bonus, but he never put pen to paper, was wounded, and now the Army is balking at paying the bonus, he said.

"We're negotiating a new contract," Wooldridge said.

Wooldridge said his wife, Carla, "will tell you that I'm crazy (for possibly going back to Iraq), but she also supports me 100 percent."

She understands her husband's drive and desire to stay infantry.

"It makes him happy and I love it," Carla, 26, said. "I know he can do it."

She also understands his feelings about Iraq.

"He needs to go back for personal reasons," she said. "I don't necessarily want him to go back, but no military spouse wants their husband or wife to go to Iraq or overseas anywhere."

The humility of a great man

2006-08-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

"O Most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ, my merciful and loving Father; I acknowledge and confess my guilt in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on Thee for pardon and forgiveness of my sins, but so coldly and carelessly that my prayers are become my sin, and they stand in need of pardon."
"I have sinned against heaven and before Thee in thought, word, and deed. I have contemned Thy majesty and holy laws. I have likewise sinned by omitting what I ought to have done and committing what I ought not. I have rebelled against the light, despising Thy mercies and judgment, and broken my vows and promise. I have neglected the better things. My iniquities are multiplied and my sins are very great. I confess them, O Lord, with shame and sorrow, detestation and loathing and desire to be vile in my own eyes as I have rendered myself vile in Thine. I humbly beseech Thee to be merciful to me in the free pardon of my sins for the sake of Thy dear Son and only Savior Jesus Christ who came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Thou gavest Thy Son to die for me."

"Make me to know what is acceptable in Thy sight, and therein to delight, open the eyes of my understanding, and help me thoroughly to examine myself concerning my knowledge, faith, and repentance, increase my faith, and direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ the Way, the Truth, and the Life, ..."
[from a 24 page authentic handwritten manuscript book dated April 21-23, 1752]

Who said this humble prayer you ask? None other than our first President George Washington. So much for all those people who say he was not a Christian.

Dying Soldier Feels 'Lucky'

2006-08-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Dying soldier feels "lucky" to say goodbye

BLOOMINGTON (AP) - U.S. Army Col. Dirk Spanton survived three tours and 32 months in Iraq, only to come home and find out that he has just months to live because of cancer.

Still, the 50-year-old husband and father of five says he feels lucky.

"I could have gotten killed while I was over there and not gotten to say goodbye to my family," said Spanton of Bloomington. "This way, I'm lucky. How many people get to say goodbye to their kids, their wife and their family? You don't like the short time frame, but it's at least a time frame."

Spanton lived with the risk of dying every day while serving with the Special Forces in Iraq, where he says he was shot at by insurgents, sent to mine fields to disarm explosives, and once had a rocket-propelled grenade pass within feet of him.

The former ROTC instructor returned home safe on Memorial Day, but within days, he was hospitalized with a mysterious illness. Doctors later diagnosed him with cancer of the liver bile ducts and now say he has six months to live.

Doctors believe that the cancer had been spreading through Spanton's body for a while, but the symptoms of the illness - back soreness and fatigue - were masked by the rigors of combat.

Spanton said his back was sore and he was tired, but it seemed natural since he constantly wore a 40-pound flak vest and slept four to six hours a night.

He said he felt strong before falling ill days after he returned home.

Now, Spanton spends every spare moment with his wife, Julie, and their five children - Ken, 24, Randy, 20, Derek, 17, Craig, 15, and Megan, 9.

Gaunt from chemotherapy, Spanton was back in uniform earlier this month to accept the Army's Legion of Merit Award and Combat Action Badge at his home in Bloomington.

"It's the first time he's put his uniform on since he's been back from Iraq," his wife said, tears streaming down her face. "He's lost 40 pounds already, and he's very disgusted with how he looks in his uniform."

She said her husband is low-key, and initially asked the Army to put the awards in the mail. His superiors turned down the request.

Doctors originally said Spanton would have two months to live after he was diagnosed, but have since changed their estimate to six months. Part of that is due to the chemotherapy, which doctors hope is shrinking the tumor.

"I'm hoping for a couple extra months, maybe longer," Spanton says. "I'll take whatever I can get."

Click here to see the source:BLACKFIVE: Dying Soldier Feels 'Lucky': "Dying Soldier Feels 'Lucky'"

Our prayers go out to Col. Dirk Spanton and his family.

Mystery 9/11 Rescuer Reveals Himself

2006-08-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Mystery 9/11 Rescuer Reveals Himself

By DAVID B. CARUSO
The Associated Press
Monday, August 14, 2006; 6:38 PM

NEW YORK -- For years, authorities wondered about the identity of a U.S. Marine who appeared at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, helped find a pair of police officers buried in the rubble, then vanished.

Even the producers of the new film chronicling the rescue, "World Trade Center," couldn't locate the mystery serviceman, who had given his name only as Sgt. Thomas.

The puzzle was finally solved when one Jason Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, saw a TV commercial for the new movie a few weeks ago as he relaxed on his couch.

His eyes widened as he saw two Marines with flashlights, hunting for survivors atop the smoldering ruins.

"That's us. That's me!" thought Thomas, who lived in Long Island during the attacks and now works as an officer in Ohio's Supreme Court.

Thomas, 32, hesitantly re-emerged last week to recount the role he played in the rescue of Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were entombed beneath 20 feet of debris when the twin towers collapsed.

Back in New York to speak of his experience and visit family, Thomas provided the AP with photographs of himself at ground zero. As further proof of his identity, the movie's producer, Michael Shamberg, said Thomas and Jimeno have spoken by phone and shared details only the two of them would know.

Thomas, who had been out of the Marine Corps about a year, was dropping his daughter off at his mother's Long Island home when she told him planes had struck the towers.

He retrieved his Marine uniform from his truck, sped to Manhattan and had just parked his car when one of the towers collapsed. Thomas ran toward the center of the ash cloud.

"Someone needed help. It didn't matter who," he said. "I didn't even have a plan. But I have all this training as a Marine, and all I could think was, 'My city is in need.'"

Thomas bumped into another ex-Marine, Staff Sgt. David Karnes, and the pair decided to search for survivors.

Click on the link to read the rest of the story Mystery 9/11 Rescuer Reveals Himself

An Unlikely Hero

2006-08-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

With the release of Oliver Stone's new movie I thought this was a fitting time to post the truth about who found the 2 police officers.

An Unlikely Hero
The Marine who found two WTC survivors.
By Rebecca Liss
Updated Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2002, at 6:13 PM ET

Only 12 survivors were pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center after the towers fell on Sept. 11, despite intense rescue efforts. Two of the last three to be located and saved were Port Authority police officers. They were not discovered by a heroic firefighter, or a rescue worker, or a cop. They were discovered by Dave Karnes.

Karnes hadn't been near the World Trade Center. He wasn't even in New York when the planes hit the towers. He was in Wilton, Conn., working in his job as a senior accountant with Deloitte Touche. When the second plane hit, Karnes told his colleagues, "We're at war." He had spent 23 years in the Marine Corps infantry and felt it was his duty to help. Karnes told his boss he might not see him for a while.

Then he went to get a haircut.

The small barbershop in Stamford, Conn., near his home, was deserted. "Give me a good Marine Corps squared-off haircut," he told the barber. When it was done, he drove home to put on his uniform. Karnes always kept two sets of Marine fatigues hanging in his closet, pressed and starched. "It's kind of weird to do, but it comes in handy," he says. Next Karnes stopped by the storage facility where he kept his equipment-he'd need rappelling gear, ropes, canteens of water, his Marine Corps K-Bar knife, and a flashlight, at least. Then he drove to church. He asked the pastor and parishioners to say a prayer that God would lead him to survivors. A devout Christian, Karnes often turned to God when faced with decisions.

Finally, Karnes lowered the convertible top on his Porsche. This would make it easier for the authorities to look in and see a Marine, he reasoned. If they could see who he was, he'd be able to zip past checkpoints and more easily gain access to the site. For Karnes, it was a "God thing" that he was in the Porsche-a Porsche 911-that day. He'd only purchased it a month earlier-it had been a stretch, financially. But he decided to buy it after his pastor suggested that he "pray on it." He had no choice but to take it that day because his Mercury was in the shop. Driving the Porsche at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour, he reached Manhattan after stopping at McDonald's for a hamburger in the late afternoon.

His plan worked. With the top off, the cops could see his pressed fatigues, his neatly cropped hair, and his gear up front. They waved him past the barricades. He arrived at the site "the pile" at about 5:30. Building 7 of the World Trade Center, a 47-story office structure adjacent to the fallen twin towers, had just dramatically collapsed. Rescue workers had been ordered off the pile it was too unsafe to let them continue. Flames were bursting from a number of buildings, and the whole site was considered unstable. Standing on the edge of the burning pile, Karnes spotted another Marine dressed in camouflage. His name was Sgt. Thomas. Karnes never learned his first name, and he's never come forward in the time since.

Together Karnes and Thomas walked around the pile looking for a point of entry farther from the burning buildings. They also wanted to move away from officials trying to keep rescue workers off the pile. Thick, black smoke blanketed the site. The two Marines couldn't see where to enter. But then "the smoke just opened up." The sun was setting and through the opening Karnes, for the first time, saw clearly the massive destruction. "I just said 'Oh, my God, it's totally gone.' " With the sudden parting of the smoke, Karnes and Thomas entered the pile. "We just disappeared into the smoke and we ran."

They climbed over the tangled steel and began looking into voids. They saw no one else searching the pile the rescue workers having obeyed the order to leave the area. "United States Marines," Karnes began shouting. "If you can hear us, yell or tap!"

Click here to read the rest of the story: An Unlikely Hero

The simple truth about service.

2006-05-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

Cindy Sheehan asked President Bush, "Why did my son have to die in Iraq?"

Another mother asked President Kennedy, "Why did my son have to die in Viet Nam?"

Another mother asked President Truman, "Why did my son have to die in Korea?

Another mother asked President F.D. Roosevelt, "Why did my son have to die at Iwo Jima?"

Another mother asked President W. Wilson, "Why did my son have to die on the battlefield of France?"

Yet another mother asked President Lincoln, "Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?"

And yet another mother asked President G. Washington, "Why did my son have to die near Valley Forge?"

Then long, long ago, a mother asked, "Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die on a cross outside of Jerusalem?"

The answers to all these are similar -- "that others may have life and dwell in peace, happiness and freedom."

This was posted on a forum I visit on a regular basis.

Evil Wal-Mart is at it again

2006-04-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

Look what the evil people at Wal-Mart are up to now. How dare they want to revitalize drepressed areas and what kind of thoughtless company would try to create new jobs?

By MARCUS KABEL, Associated Press Writer

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said Tuesday it plans to build more than 50 stores in struggling communities over the next two years, as part of a goal to create between 15,000 and 25,000 jobs.

Wal-Mart said it will build the stores in neighborhoods with high crime or unemployment rates, on sites that are environmentally contaminated, or in vacant buildings or malls in need of revitalization.

The Bentonville, Ark., company said it expects many of the jobs will be in minority communities and could generate more than $100 million in state and local tax revenue. It already has over 1.3 million U.S. employees.

Wal-Mart already has plans to open between 335 and 370 new U.S. stores this year after 341 last year and has said it sees room for more than 1,500 additional stores in the United States in the coming years, on top of nearly 3,200 it already operates.

The retailer, which has stepped up efforts to burnish its reputation after mounting attacks, also will create 10 "Jobs and Opportunity Zones" around stores in troubled communities that will aim to bolster local businesses in those areas.

Click here to read the full story: Wal-Mart to Add Jobs in Struggling Areas - Yahoo! News

Fatwa against statues triggers uproar in Egypt - Yahoo! News

2006-04-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

Another great example of how backwards and controling the so called peaceful religion of islam is.

CAIRO (AFP) - A fatwa issued by Egypt's top religious authority which forbids the display of statues has art-lovers fearing it could be used by Islamic extremists as an excuse to destroy Egypt's historical heritage.

Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the country's top Islamic jurist, issued the religious edict which declared as un-Islamic the exhibition of statues in homes, basing the decision on texts in the hadith (sayings of the prophet).

Intellectuals and artists argue that the decree represents a setback for art -- a mainstay of the multi-billion-dollar tourist industry -- and would deal a blow to the country's fledgling sculpture business.

The fatwa did not specifically mention statues in museums or public places, but it condemned sculptors and their work.

Still, many fear the edict could prod Islamic fundamentalists to attack Egypt's thousands of ancient and pharaonic statues on show at tourist sites across the country.

"We don't rule out that someone will enter the Karnak temple in Luxor or any other pharaonic temple and blow it up on the basis of the fatwa," Gamal al-Ghitani, editor of the literary Akhbar al-Adab magazine, told AFP.

Click here to read the rest of the storie: Fatwa against statues triggers uproar in Egypt - Yahoo! News

Get Some!!!

2006-03-31T08:24:00.000-08:00

Convoys will now stand and fight when attacked in Iraq

By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, March 31, 2006

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany - In a change to Army tactics, U.S. soldiers will stand and fight instead of shooting and pressing on when their convoys are attacked on Iraqi roads, according to Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va.

"In the first two years of Iraq, convoys (under attack) just fired and kept rolling," said Maj. Roger Gaines, the battalion's operations officer said Thursday. "That gave bad guys the perception that Americans run away. Now, convoys will stop and engage the enemy."

The change is part of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker's underlying philosophy of a more rigorous response to attacks, Perritt said in a telephone interview Thursday.

The training is mandatory for all soldiers, regardless of their military occupational specialty.

Members of the 1st Armored Division's 141st Signal Battalion tried out the new policy while practicing live-fire convoys this week at the Grafenwöhr Training Area.

"We are training to take the fight to the enemy," said Gaines, a 45-year-old Portland, Ore., native. "If you stop and fight, you can at least neutralize them or take it to the point that they disengage."

On Thursday, 35 soldiers from the battalion's Company C convoyed across a range, responding to simulated roadside bomb and several small-arms attacks. Each time the convoy was attacked, soldiers leapt out of their Humvees and took cover before unleashing a hail of rifle and machine-gun fire on pop-up targets.

Company C's 3rd Platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Joshua Mendoza, 26, of Chandler, Ariz., said shooting on the run did not send insurgents the right message.

"They have been seeing how convoys are being attacked and driving off," he said. "The enemy has felt like they might be winning. Now we are going to take them out."

The change in tactics is necessary because insurgents are getting smarter, said Sgt. 1st Class Charles Ahlborn, 36, of San Diego.

"They know our reactions to certain things. Two years ago, they would never try and stop us," he said. "But now IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are becoming more prevalent on the battlefield, and they are doing anything they can to try and stop the convoys.

"So what we are trying to do is plan for any type of contingency or scenario that insurgents might throw at us. The objective is not to chase them down. Just protect yourself and neutralize the threat that is immediate to your convoy."

Sgt. Joel Arbour, a Company C soldier, served in northern Iraq from 2004 to 2005 with 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment.

The 28-year-old Santa Fe, Texas, native said he’s been attacked by small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs, car bombs and suicide bombers during convoys in Iraq. Back then, units would put down suppressing fire and keep moving.

But times have changed, he said.

"The insurgents have learned that we blow on through. They know you are going to run past, so they will ambush [soldiers] down the road with a frontal ambush," he added. "This training gets us ready for multiple attacks."

click on the link to see the source. Stars & Stripes

What the captured documents show

2006-03-28T14:49:00.000-08:00

President Bush has made errors, as all humans do, but one thing he has not been guilty of is bad faith. The same cannot be said of his critics.
One thinks of those liberals and Democrats who accused President Bush of "lying" about weapons of mass destruction and about ties between al Qaeda and Iraq particularly now, because two weeks ago, after an unaccountable delay of three years, the administration declassified and released thousands of documents captured from Saddam Hussein's regime. They offer more proof of what we've already learned from other sources: that Saddam was in collusion with al Qaeda; that he did instruct his people on hiding evidence of WMDs; and that he did support worldwide terror.
Before turning to the documents, though, it is worth pausing for a moment to dwell on the bad faith of Mr. Bush's opponents. The whole world knew that Saddam had used chemical weapons at least twice: once against the Iranians and once against the Kurds within Iraq. (He had also threatened to use them against Israel.) The whole world further knew that Saddam engaged in a protracted game of cat and mouse with United Nations weapons inspectors, first throwing roadblocks in their path and finally expelling them from the country (a violation of the cease-fire agreement that followed the 1991 Gulf War, which required Iraq to account for its weapons and prove that they had been dismantled and destroyed).
The entire world also knew that the U.S. and Britain had not rushed to war with Iraq. To the contrary, the build-up to the 2003 invasion was lengthy and deliberate, giving ample time to the Iraqi dictator to hide or destroy his WMDs.
And yet when coalition forces failed to find caches of weapons, the cry on the left was "Bush lied." It doesn't even make logical sense. Why would Mr. Bush want to launch a war on false pretenses? Would he purposely create a political problem for himself? Why? To enrich Halliburton? This is fever swamp talk. Yet it was heard among leading members of the Democratic Party, not just in the MoveOn.org milieu.
Nor was it correct to claim, as so many on the left did, that Mr. Bush altered the rationale for war after he failed to find WMDs. In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in February 2003, on the eve of the invasion, the president sketched his vision of a democratic Iraq that he hoped would begin the transformation of the despotic and violent Middle East into something more enlightened and free. He mentioned "disarming" Iraq by force, but it was far from the sole rationale for war.
Three years in, we are hearing from the summer soldiers. The pacification of Iraq is proving more difficult than anticipated. Even some on the right are throwing in the towel. But as the Wall Street Journal wisely editorialized, the consequences of failure -- by which they mean capitulation on our part -- would be utterly catastrophic.
The radical Islamists will claim that they defeated the United States and chased us out of Iraq just as they defeated the Soviets and chased them out of Afghanistan. And every moderate-leaning Arab and Muslim in the world will shrug his shoulders and give up. It will embolden the terrorists tremendously to see the U.S. withdraw from Iraq. The corresponding plunge in morale at home will rival if not exceed post-Vietnam syndrome. Iran will seize the opportunity to impose a Shi'ite theocracy on Iraq, and Afghanistan will feel the reverberations and tremble on its still shaky foundations.
Oh yes, the documents. One shows that an official from Iraq's government met with Osama bin Laden on Feb. 19, 1995, with the explicit permission of Saddam Hussein. When bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan, the Iraqi documents contain a handwritten note saying, "The relationship with him is still through the Sudanese. We're currently working on activating this relationship through a new channel in light of his current location" (Afghanistan). The notes also reveal that Osama bin Laden suggested "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia.
The documents further disclose that the Iraqi intelligence service issued detailed instructions to directors and managers of weapons sites regarding U.N. inspections. They were to remove files from computers, "remove correspondence with the atomic energy and military industry departments concerning the prohibited weapons" and "remove prohibited materials and equipment, including documents and catalogs and making sure to clear labs and storages (sic) of any traces of chemical or biological materials that were previously used or stored."

By Mona Charen
March 28, 2006

click on the link to see the source. What the captured documents show

Afghan Clerics, in Friday Prayers, Call for Convert's Execution

2006-03-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

What would you sacrifice for your faith?

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 24 - Afghan clerics used Friday Prayers at mosques across the capital to call for death for an Afghan man who converted to Christianity, despite widespread protest in the West.

As the international pressure on Afghanistan grew, the clerics demanded the execution of the Afghan, Abdul Rahman 41, if he does not convert back to Islam. His conversion 15 years ago was brought to the attention of Afghan authorities as part of a child custody dispute.

The Bush administration and European governments have strongly protested the case as a violation of religious freedom.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman was asked whether the United States had made it clear to the Afghan government that its conduct on the issue could have consequences for its relationship with the United States.

"It has been made abundantly clear to the government of Afghanistan how the United States feels about this issue and the importance that we attach to its positive resolution," the spokesman, Adam Ereli, replied.

Asked what should happen next, Mr. Ereli said, "The next step is for the issue to be resolved by the government of Afghanistan."

Mr. Rahman's case has drawn such a strong reaction in Afghanistan because many hardline clerics believe there is no greater offense than apostacy.

One speaker, Mawlavi Habibullah, told more than a thousand clerics and young people who had gathered in Kabul that "Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws.

"The prophet says when somebody changes religion, he must be killed" he said.

He and others demanded that the country's political leaders and judges resist international pressure over the case, placing them squarely at odds with President Hamid Karzai, who has promised to bring democracy to Afghanistan.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters today that she had received assurances from Mr. Karzai in a telephone call that Mr. Rahman would not be sentenced to death, The Associated Press reported.

The case has exposed the contradictions within Afghanistan's constitution, which promises freedom of religion on the one hand, and on the other declares Islam supreme.

Shiekh Asif Muhsini, a Shiite cleric, emphasized that the constitution says, "No law can contradict Islam and the values of the constitution."

The case had fueled feelings among many here of a sense of assault against Islam worldwide, coming after widely publicized cases involving the desecration of the Koran in Guantánamo Bay in 2004 by American soldiers interrogating prisoners and, more recently, cartoons published in Europe of the Prophet Muhamma.

Dr. Mohammad Ayaz Niyazi, an Egyptian educated in Islamic law, who attended one of the gatherings today, said, "There have been serial attacks on the Islamic world recently, starting with insulting the Holy Quran, insulting the prophet of Islam, and now converting to Christianity by an Afghan."

Dr. Niyazi objected to warnings from Italian leaders, who threatened to protest the case by withdrawing from Afghanistan the forces who are part of an international security force here.

"Do your troops come to Afghanistan to incite apostasy?" Dr. Niyazi said. "We thought your troops were here for security." By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA

click on this link to view the source. Afghan Clerics, in Friday Prayers, Call for Convert's Execution - New York Times

Man Overboard

2006-03-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

This is a great article By Ruth Marcus

I have a new theory about what's behind everything that's wrong with the Bush administration: manliness.

"Manliness" is the unapologetic title of a new book by Harvey C. Mansfield, a conservative professor of government at Harvard University, which makes him a species as rare as a dissenting voice in the Bush White House. Mansfield's thesis is that manliness, which he sums up as "confidence in the face of risk," is a misunderstood and unappreciated attribute.

Manliness, he writes, "seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk." It entails assertiveness, even stubbornness, and craves power and action. It explains why men, naturally inclined to assert that "our policy, our party, our regime is superior," dominate in the political sphere.

Though manliness is "the quality mostly of one sex," Mansfield allows that women can be manly, too, though the sole example he can seem to come up with, and deploys time and again, is Margaret Thatcher. "Is it possible to teach women manliness and thus to become more assertive?" he wonders, but not really. "Or is that like teaching a cat to bark?" Me-ow!

"The problem of manliness is not that it does not exist," Mansfield concludes. "It does exist, but it is unemployed." Well, um, excuse me, but I think -- it's just my opinion, now, maybe you disagree, and I'm sure we could work it out -- Mansfield has it exactly backward. Manliness does exist. The problem is that it's overemployed -- nowhere more than in this administration.

Think about it this way: Is a trait exemplified by reluctance to ask directions -- "for it is out of manliness that men do not like to ask for directions when lost," Mansfield writes -- really what you want in a government deciding whether to take a country to war?

The undisputed manliness of the Bush White House stands in contrast to its predecessors and wannabes. If Republicans are the Daddy Party and Democrats the Mommy Party, the Clinton White House often operated like Mansfield's vision of an estrogen-fueled kaffeeklatsch: indecisive and undisciplined. (Okay, there were some unfortunate, testosterone-filled moments, too.) Bill Clinton's would-be successor, Al Gore, was mocked for enlisting Naomi Wolf to help him emerge as an alpha male; after that, French-speaking John Kerry had to give up windsurfing and don hunting gear to prove he was a real man. And Bush's father, of course, had to battle the Wimp Factor. Mansfield recalls Thatcher's manly admonition to 41 on the eve of the Persian Gulf War: "Don't go wobbly on me, George."

No wimpiness worries now. This is an administration headed by a cowboy boot-wearing brush-clearer, backstopped by a quail-shooting fly fisherman comfortable with long stretches of manly silence -- very "Brokeback Mountain," except this crowd considers itself too manly for such PC Hollywood fare. "I would be glad to talk about ranchin', but I haven't seen the movie," Bush told a questioner.

There are, no doubt, comforting aspects to the manly presidency; think Bush with a bullhorn on top of the smoldering ruins of the twin towers. After a terrorist attack, no one's looking for a sensitive New Age president. Even now, being a strong leader polls at the top of qualities that voters most admire in Bush.

But the manliness of the Bush White House has a darker side that has proved more curse than advantage. The prime example is the war in Iraq: the administration's assertion of the right to engage in preemptive and unilateral war; the resolute avoidance of debate about the "slam-dunk" intelligence on weapons of mass destruction; the determined lack of introspection or self-doubt about the course of the war; and the swaggering dismissal of dissenting views as the carping of those not on the team.

The administration's manliness doesn't stop at the water's edge. Pushing another round of tax cuts in 2003, Vice President Cheney sounded like a warrior claiming tribute after victory in battle: "We won the midterms. This is our due," Cheney reportedly said. After the 2004 election, Bush exuded the blustering self-assurance of a president who had political capital to spend -- or thought he did -- and wasn't going to think twice before plunking down the whole pile on Social Security.

Mansfieldian manliness is present as well in Bush's confident -- overconfident -- response to Hurricane Katrina (insert obligatory "Brownie" quote here). And the administration's claim of almost unfettered executive power is the ultimate in manliness: how manly to conclude that Congress gave the go-ahead to ignore a law without it ever saying so; how even manlier to argue that your inherent authority as commander in chief would permit you to brush aside those bothersome congressional gnats if they tried to stop eavesdropping without a warrant.

Mansfield writes that he wants to "convince skeptical readers -- above all, educated women" -- that "irrational manliness deserves to be endorsed by reason." Sorry, professor: You lose. What this country could use is a little less manliness -- and a little more of what you would describe as womanly qualities: restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt.

But that's just my view.

click on the link so see the source. Man Overboard

Kerry blasts Bush on federal response to Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Kerry blasts Bush on federal response to Hurricane Katrina
By Jonathan Allen

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) unleashed a furious attack on the Bush administration at a Brown University speech yesterday, upbraiding the president's response to the hurricane that recently devastated the Gulf Coastand tying it to what he sees as other flaws at the White House.

"This is the Katrina administration," read prepared remarks posted on 2004 Democratic presidential nominee's website, www.johnkerry.com. "Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do," read Kerry's script, portions of which were included in an e-mail to supporters that ended with a fundraising appeal.

"Michael Brown [Bush's former emergency-management director] ...is to Katrina what [former Iraq administrator] Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what [former CIA Director] George Tenet is to slam-dunk intelligence; what [former Deputy Defense Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad; what [Vice President] Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; what [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning; what [House Majority Leader] Tom Delay [R-Texas] is to ethics; and what George Bush is to 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Wanted Dead or Alive.'''

In a brief interview, Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, called Kerry's pitch for cash "repulsive."

In a news release, she said, "John Kerry's attacks on President Bush's efforts to assist the victims and rebuild the Gulf Coast don't come as a surprise. Armchair quarterbacking on tough issues has never been a problem for Senator Kerry. The American people have pulled together during a difficult time and Democrats' efforts to politicize this tragedy are unsavory at best."

Kerry's speech is the latest salvo in a political battle over accountability that has pitted the parties against each other in Washington and federal officials against their state and local counterparts in the Gulf region.

While Kerry's speech may play well with the Democratic base, Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at George Washington University, said the senator has a tough challenge to pin blame on Bush.

Click on the link to see the source. Kerry blasts Bush on federal response to Hurricane Katrina

Christianity Dying In Its Birthplace

2005-09-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

What some observers are calling a pogrom took place near Ramallah, West Bank, on the night of Sep. 3-4. That's when fifteen Muslim youths from one village, Dair Jarir, rampaged against Taybeh, a neighboring all-Christian village of 1,500 people.

The reason for the assault? A Muslim woman from Dair Jarir, Hiyam Ajaj, 23, fell in love with her Christian boss, Mehdi Khouriyye, owner of a tailor shop in Taybeh. The couple maintained a clandestine two-year affair and she became pregnant in about March 2005. When her family learned of her condition, it murdered her. That was on about Sep. 1; unsatisfied even with this "honor killing" - for Islamic law strictly forbids non-Muslim males to have sexual relations with Muslim females - the Ajaj men sought vengeance against Khouriyye and his family.

They took it two days later in an assault on Taybeh. The Ajajs and their friends broke into houses and stole furniture, jewelry, and electrical appliances. They threw Molotov cocktails at some buildings and poured kerosene on others, then torched them. The damage included at least 16 houses, some stores, a farm, and a gas station. The assailants vandalized cars, looted extensively, and destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary.

"It was like a war," one Taybeh resident told The Jerusalem Post. Hours passed before the Palestinian Authority security and fire services arrived. The fifteen assailants spent only a few hours in police detention, then were released. As for Khouriyye, the Palestinian police arrested him, kept him jail, and (his family says) have repeatedly beat him.

As the news service Adnkronos International notes, for Palestinian Christians "the fact that the Muslim aggressors have been released while the Christian tailor-shop owner is still being held, at best symbolizes the PA's indifference to the plight of Palestinian Christians, at worst shows it is taking sides against them."

A cousin, Suleiman Khouriyye, pointed to his burned house. "They did this because we're Christians. They did this because we are the weaker ones." The Khouriyyes and others recall the assailants shouting Allahu Akbar and anti-Christian slogans: "Burn the infidels, burn the Crusaders." To which, an unrepentant cousin of Hiyam Ajaj replied, "We burned their houses because they dishonored our family, not because they are Christians."

This assault fits a larger pattern. According to the Catholic Custodian of the Holy Land, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Christians in the Bethlehem region alone have suffered 93 cases of injustice in 2000-04. In the worst of these, in 2002, Muslims murdered the two Amre sisters, 17 and 19 years old, whom they called prostitutes. A post-mortem, however, showed the teenagers to have been virgins - and to have been tortured on their genitals.

"Almost every day - I repeat, almost every day - our communities are harassed by the Islamic extremists in these regions," Pizzaballa says. "And if it's not the members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, there are clashes with ... the Palestinian Authority." In addition to the Islamists, a "Muslim land mafia" is said to operate. With PA complicity. it threatens Christian land and house owners, often succeeding to compel them to abandon their properties.

The campaign of persecution has succeeded. Even as the Christian population of Israel grows, that of the Palestinian Authority shrinks precipitously. Bethlehem and Nazareth, historic Christian towns for nearly two millennia, are now primarily Muslim. In 1922, Christians outnumbered Muslims in Jerusalem; today, Christians amount to a mere 2 percent of that city's population.

"Is Christian life liable to be reduced to empty church buildings and a congregation-less hierarchy with no flock in the birthplace of Christianity?" So asks Daphne Tsimhoni in the Middle East Quarterly. It is hard to see what will prevent that ghost-like future from coming into existence.

One factor that could help prevent this dismal outcome would be for mainline Protestant churches to speak out against Palestinian Muslims for tormenting and expelling Palestinian Christians. To date, unfortunately, the Episcopalian, Evangelical Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, as well as the United Church of Christ, have ignored the problem.

Instead, they pursue the self-indulgent path of venting moral outrage against the Israeli bystander and even withdrawing their investment funds from it. As they obsess with Israel but stay silent about Christianity dying in its birthplace one wonders what it will take to awaken them.

By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 13, 2005

Click here to see the source. Christianity Dying In Its Birthplace

School-buses showdown: Mayor Nagin vs. Russert

2005-09-12T12:55:00.000-07:00

IN KATRINA'S WAKE
School-buses showdown: Mayor Nagin vs. Russert
New Orleans chief claims he did everything possible to save lives

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is defending his actions in connection with Hurricane Katrina, as he was grilled yesterday about why hundreds of public buses were not used to evacuate the city in advance of the devastating storm.
"I think I did everything possible known to any mayor in the country as it relates to saving lives," Nagin said.
The mayor, questioned by NBC's Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," claimed he could not find drivers for the metro and school buses, which were left to flood in the post-hurricane deluge.
"Sure, here was lots of buses out there," Nagin said. "But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available."

Russert did not let up on the question, continuing into this exchange:

RUSSERT: But, Mr. Mayor, if you read the city of New Orleans' comprehensive emergency plan-- and I've read it and I'll show it to you and our viewers--it says very clearly, "Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the mayor of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life-saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedure as needed. Approximately 100,000 citizens of New Orleans do not have means of personal transportation."
It was your responsibility. Where was the planning? Where was the preparation? Where was the execution?

MAYOR NAGIN: The planning was always in getting people to higher ground, getting them to safety. That's what we meant by evacuation. Get them out of their homes, which - most people are under sea level. Get them to a higher ground and then depending upon our state and federal officials to move them out of harm's way after the storm has hit.

RUSSERT: But in July of this year, one month before the hurricane, you cut a public service announcement which said, in effect, "You are on your own." And you have said repeatedly that you never thought an evacuation plan would work. Which is true: whether you would exercise your obligation and duty as mayor or that - and evacuate people, or you believe people were on their own?

MAYOR NAGIN: Well, Tim, you know, we basically wove this incredible tightrope as it is. We were in a position of trying to encourage as many people as possible to leave because we weren't comfortable that we had the resources to move them out of our city. Keep in mind: normal evacuations, we get about 60 percent of the people out of the city of New Orleans. This time we got 80 percent out. We encouraged people to buddy up, churches to take senior citizens and move them to safety, and a lot of them did. And then we would deal with the remaining people that couldn't or wouldn't leave and try and get them to higher ground until safety came.

Russert also quoted previous statements from Nagin about alleged racism delaying response, as Nagin had said, "the more I think about it, definitely race played into this. If it's race, fine, let's call a spade a spade, a diamond a diamond. We can never let this happen again. Even if you hate black people and you are in a leadership position, this did not help anybody."
"Who in the leadership position hates black people?" asked Russert.

"I don't know who hates black people," responded Nagin, "but I will just tell you this, that I think the imagery that came out across the nation portrayed that this was primarily poor black people that were affected. And I don't know if that affected the response or not. But I got really upset when I heard about some of our residents walking to one of the parish lines and were turned back by attack dogs and armed guys with machine guns."

When asked what his biggest mistake was in connection with the disaster, Nagin said, "My biggest mistake is having a fundamental assumption that in the state of Louisiana, with an $18 billion budget, in the country of the United States that can move whole fleets of aircraft carriers across the globe in 24 hours, that my fundamental assumption was get as many people to safety as possible, and that the cavalry would be coming within two to three days, and they didn't come."

Click the link to see the source. WorldNetDaily: School-buses showdown: Mayor Nagin vs. Russert

Arabs in Gaza show their true colors.

2005-09-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

PA and Hamas defend synagogue destruction

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Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 12, 2005
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The Palestinian Authority and Hamas on Monday defended the decision to demolish the synagogues in the Gaza Strip, saying they did not want to give Jews an excuse to ever think about returning to the area.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas visited the former settlement of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip, where he declared that the Israel did not leave behind any synagogues. "There are no synagogues here," he said.

"Israel left behind some empty buildings which that are likely to collapse. All the public buildings they left are in danger of collapsing," he said.

According to Abbas, the PA would destroy all the empty structures, including the synagogues, to build homes for thousands of Palestinians.

Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said his movement would not allow the synagogues to exist for fear that they would be turned in the future into "Wailing Walls" for Jews. "We won't allow any Wailing Walls on our blessed land," he said.

Defending the decision to raze the synagogues, Haniyeh said Israel was trying to keep them to put pressure on the PA to protect them in the future. "These synagogues were built for political, not religious, reasons. They were built illegally and should go away with the occupation."

Meanwhile, a number of armed groups in the Gaza Strip announced that they would continue to launch attacks on Israel until it withdraws from more territories.

The armed wing of Fatah announced that it was planning to launch attacks inside Israel "until all our lands are liberated." Muhamemd Hijazi, commander of one of the Fatah- affiliated militias in the Gaza Strip, said his men were planning suicide attacks in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheba.

"We will continue our martyrdom operations inside Israel until all our lands are liberated, by God's will," he said. "Gaza is only part of historic Palestine. We won't lay down our weapons as long as Jerusalem and the West Bank are under occupation."

Islamic Jihad leader Muhammed al-Hindi said his group's main task now was to liberate Jerusalem and the West Bank. "Today we are celebrating victory in the Gaza Strip, but we still have Jerusalem and the West Bank," he said. "Today we have begun the march toward Jerusalem and all of Palestine."

He said the pullout from the Gaza Strip did not mark the end of Israeli occupation "because Israel continues to control the airspace and border crossings." He, too, declared that his group would not abandon its weapons following the disengagement.

Click on the link to see the source. PA and Hamas defend synagogue destruction

Arabs don't really want peace

2005-09-12T08:29:00.000-07:00

Israel pulls out of Gaza By Nidal al-Mughrabi

Jubilant Palestinians planted flags on the rubble of Jewish settlements and set synagogues ablaze on Monday as Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation.

"This is a day of happiness and joy that the Palestinian people have not witnessed for a century," President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in Gaza City.

Palestinian forces waving victory signs took over while tanks and armored vehicles trundled out in the dark, for the first time giving up settlements on land Palestinians want for a state and leaving them a volatile testing ground for statehood.

"The mission has been completed," said Brigadier Aviv Kochavi after the gates closed at the main crossing point. "Israel's presence of 38 years has come to an end."

But rancor over the fate of synagogues clouded hopes the pullout would help revive peacemaking as Washington wants.

Attacking what they saw as symbols of hated occupation, youths set ablaze several of the houses of worship left behind in 21 settlements evacuated last month under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to disengage from conflict.

Palestinians were furious when Sharon's cabinet decided to leave synagogues intact, under pressure from rabbis whose support could be key in a power struggle. Adding to tensions, Israel demanded on Monday that the buildings be preserved.

ACCOLADES

Removing Gaza's 8,500 settlers has won Sharon international accolades.

But while Palestinians welcome the withdrawal, they fear Sharon is trading Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, for a permanent hold on larger areas of the occupied West Bank where 245,000 Jewish settlers live isolated from 2.4 million Arabs.

Palestinians were also angry that Israel, citing security reasons, will continue to control Gaza's border crossings, air space and waters and say the occupation is far from over.

Celebratory gunfire overnight gave way to festive scenes. Thousands of Palestinians brought their families to nose around former settlements, licking ice creams and sucking on sweets.

"Before, this was a symbol of fear and evil. Today it's a place to visit and a source of happiness," said building worker Abdullah Salah, 35, in the biggest settlement of Neve Dekalim.

In demolished enclaves in north Gaza, Palestinians scavenged for everything from roof tiles to bathtubs.

With the departure of Israeli forces that had maintained strict control along the Egypt-Gaza border, thousands of people crossed the fence line both ways, reuniting in celebration with friends and relatives, as Egyptian police stood idly by.

"More than 3,000 Palestinians and Egyptians crossed the border between Palestinian Rafah and Egyptian Rafah ... to express their joy," an Egyptian border official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

The flood of Egyptians and Palestinians seemed to make a mockery of Israel's efforts to keep hold of Gaza's border crossings with Egypt for at least the near term. Under a deal with Israel, Egypt had deployed special border police forces to stop arms smuggling to Gaza by militants.

SOLDIERS CHEER

Israeli troops cheered and hugged one another as they crossed out of Gaza, scene of some of the worst bloodshed since the uprising blew up in 2000 after peace talks failed.

Israeli commanders had first planned to bypass poor and densely populated Gaza in the 1967 war. Even after capturing it, some Israeli leaders expressed reservations about ruling a territory seen by many Israelis as a costly liability.

President Abbas's first task will be to enforce order and rein in militant groups which refuse to disarm. Israel has threatened massive retaliation if attacks from Gaza continue.

"They can wave any flag they want, but we expect the Palestinian Authority to take full responsibility," said the general commanding the pullout, Dan Harel.

Abbas told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that by year end: "I will be able to control the chaos in Gaza."

Militants were among the first to scramble into the settlements, trying to plant their faction's flags on the highest ground. At Abbas's behest, militants kept to a seven-month-old ceasefire to smooth the Israeli pullout.

"Four years of our resistance have done more than 10 years of negotiations," said one masked militant from the Islamic Hamas group, posing a growing political challenge to Abbas.

Rightist Israeli opponents of the withdrawal had called the evacuation of Gaza's settlers a capitulation to the militants. Many settlers saw Gaza as a biblical birthright, but most Israelis were happy to see the back of it.

"There is no doubt our stay in Gaza was a historic error, and I am proud we found the strength to rectify this error," said Israeli Vice-Premier Shimon Peres.

But settlers said they hoped to return one day and rebuild.

Only synagogues and public buildings were left standing. Palestinians were angry at Israel's decision to leave the synagogues, torn between wanting to erase emblems of Israel and uncomfortable at being seen destroying places of worship.

Israelis expressed anger at the destruction of the synagogues, which the army itself had originally planned to demolish. Sharon adviser Dore Gold said: "Setting them on fire isn't a way of creating a new environment for a hopeful future."

Palestinian officials said all would be demolished. But David Baker, an official in Sharon's office, said: "We expect the Palestinians to leave the structures intact, untouched and preserved."

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Netzarim, Diala Saadeh in Nissanit, Dan Williams in Kissufim, Jonathan Saul in Kerem Shalom, Corinne Heller, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Matt Spetalnick in Jerusalem. Writing by Matthew Tostevin in Jerusalem)

Click here to see the source.Print Story: Israel pulls out of Gaza on Yahoo! News

Best and Brightest! "He Died Well"

2005-08-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

IRAQ: Family of 12 grieves in a costly month for U.S. war efforts by Mark Bergin

Alcides Bloem stepped to the podium at First Evangelical Presbyterian Church in this Seattle suburb on Aug. 15 and choked through words his family hoped never to hear. "I'm going to miss him," Mr. Bloem, 20, said of his twin brother Nick, one of 14 Marines killed in a roadside bomb attack just south of Haditha, Iraq. Lance Cpl. Nicholas Bloem died instantly Aug. 3, the day after his 20th birthday.

In what has proved a costly month in the continuing struggle to root out Iraqi terrorists, the Bloems are among many families to have paid the ultimate price. August is on pace to rank in the top five months for U.S. deaths since the war began in March 2003. Rather than offer comfort or strength, such numbers only quicken the anguish.

Nevertheless, as friends and family stood to eulogize this fallen Marine, a theme of hope emanated through tears. "He died well," said Eric Irwin, the Bloems' longtime pastor before their move from the Northwest to Belgrade, Mont., three years ago. "He died as a sacrifice. He died with courage. He died with integrity."

Nick Bloem's eight sisters, twin brother and parents Al and Debbie filled the front row of a near-full auditorium built to hold a thousand people. A brass band opened the memorial service with hymns. Famed gospel singer BeBe Winans closed with a song written in tribute to his recently deceased brother. In planning the funeral, friends of the Bloems had merely hoped to attain sheet music for Mr. Winans' song, "Safe from Harm." The artist was moved to come perform it himself. The audience wept.

In anti-war bastions across the country, Nick Bloem's death fueled entirely different sentiments. With the number of U.S. troops lost in Iraq closing in on 2,000, bitter denunciations of U.S. foreign policy steadily increase. Spurred by the deaths of 10 Ohio Marines in the same attack that killed Mr. Bloem, the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition is demanding the immediate return of deployed troops and has stepped up efforts to block military recruitment.

The work of similar organizations combined with negative press likely contributed to the Army recently falling 11 percent short of its fiscal year recruiting goals. The National Guard and Army Reserve have also lagged behind. But the Air Force, Navy, and Marines have all met or surpassed their targeted numbers.

No amount of anti-recruiting rhetoric could have kept Mr. Bloem from fulfilling his lifelong dream. Upon graduation from high school in 2003, he immediately enlisted as a Marine, harboring visions of moving up the ranks to become a commissioned officer or even Corps Commandant.

Like many of his fellow troops, Mr. Bloem defied media stereotypes of backwoods bumpkins with few choices in life but military service (see next page). Friends described him as bright, passionate, and fearless - the only one to leap from 50-foot cliffs on a family camping trip to central Washington. Having fallen in love last December, Mr. Bloem eagerly awaited the conclusion of his seven-month term in Iraq-just a few weeks away when he died.

In the shade of a gazebo at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, Wash., a handful of Marines carefully folded the American flag that had draped over Mr. Bloem's coffin and presented it to the family. From a green hill nearby, the cracks of a 21-gun salute echoed off surrounding fir trees. The mournful notes of "Taps" followed.

In the midst of great suffering, Al Bloem has found comfort in the meaning of his son's death. "There is a price that must be paid to do the things that need to be done to ensure peace in our time," he told WORLD. "You think about things like Gettysburg, Lexington, and the list goes on in history, Nick's a part of that now." For a father confident in his son's faith, Nick Bloem is part of much more as well: "Throughout this pain that we're going through, one thing has been foremost in our minds: The sun rises in Christ."

Click here to view the source. Marine Corp Family HonorS Fallen Son

"SEMPER FI NICK BLOEM"!!

Wow a Heat wave in Alaska?

2005-08-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Friday, August 12, 2005

A strong weather system brought record temperatures to the Interior on Wednesday and will keep things hot for several days.

Ted Fathauer, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Fairbanks, said the heat wave is due to a "fabulously strong high-pressure dome" aided by a cloudless sky. The high-pressure ridge responsible for the warm weather is of record proportions, according to the weather service, and it is expected to remain in place into the middle of next week.

Fathauer said the temperatures are unusual for this time of year.

"This is for real," Fathauer said. "It's not a meteorological practical joke."

The record high of 83 recorded Wednesday at Fairbanks International Airport was tied for highest temperature of the year with a day in June. Fathauer expected Thursday or today to be the warmest day of the year, until a smoky haze descended upon the area, keeping Thursday afternoon temperatures just under 80 degrees.

A dense smoke advisory was issued when the smoke from fires to the southwest drifted into the area.

Eielson Air Force Base recorded a temperature of 88 on Wednesday, breaking the 1990 record of 83. Several remote automatic stations reported temperatures into the 90s, with the highest reading of 92 at McKinley River southwest of Fairbanks.

Fathauer said garden plants should enjoy the temperatures, provided they are kept watered. He said mosquitoes are also enjoying the weather and should be propagating accordingly. But the warmth is too much for some.

"I talked with some visitors from a cruise ship and they said it was too hot," Fathauer said. "I told them I feel their pain.''

Tanana Valley State Fair attendees seemed to be taking the heat in stride, general manager Lloyd Huskey said. He said there have not been any reported heat-related illness. Last year, three people had to be transported to the hospital from the fair for heatstroke. He said this year, many people are bringing in plenty of water and most of the concessions are also selling bottled water.

"It's warm but people seem to have taken very good notice," he said.

Superintendents and barn managers at the fairgrounds are taking a variety of measures to keep livestock comfortable during the heat wave.

At the Poultry Pavilion, the new "Cluck Hut" Quonset, poultry superintendent Cheryle Pfeffer had three different size wading pools set out for the ducks and geese. Inside, helpers were keeping the sawdust and gravel wetted down and ice was added to the water containers in each pen.

When it gets really warm, the poultry are misted with mister fans and their pens dampened.

"Next year, if it's hot, we're going to put iced water bottles in the pens," Pfeffer said.

At the Delta Barn, coordinator Kathy Bue said a large interior duct fan helps, but isn't cooling the barn adequately, despite the addition of a number of window fans strung overhead. The barn houses poultry, pigs, goats and calves.

"It's really tough on the animals," Bue said. "We're keeping them inside and not exercising them. We are misting them with water and making sure they have adequate water all day long."

Julie Hendrickson, who has a ram housed in the Delta Barn, cools him off by soaking him down to the skin at an outside hose.

She said her husband, a sheet-metal worker, has been looking over the barn and will volunteer to help install some wall fans at each end of the barn if someone will donate them.

There has been some horse stall switching the past few days as temperatures remain high.

"Some kids have been scratching if their animal is stressed from the heat," said Martha Kopplin, a superintendent for the 4-H Fair Horse Show.

After riding in the competitive events, riders take their steeds to the wash rack and hose them down. Others, Kopplin said, are exercising their horses during the late evening to keep them from standing too long in their stalls.

At the U.S. Youth Soccer Association Alaska State Cup taking place at the Fairbanks Youth Soccer Association fields this week, players aren't letting the heat affect their game.

"After the games, we're mostly in our rooms with the air conditioner on," said Jaymiee Jackson with the Anchorage Arsenal under-14 team. She and teammates Karly Meyer, Madeline Blake and Aurora Henriquez said a June trip to a Florida soccer tournament hardened them against the heat--that and the three bottles of water they are required to drink before and during games.

But the spectators didn't have the luxury of the shade tents the teams use on the sidelines. Karen Richards was watching her son 13-year-old son, Luke, with the AYSC Reds from Anchorage and said the kids seemed to be handling the heat better than most of the crowd.

"He's as wound up as ever," she said. "But I'm not sure how long I'm going to last."

Click here to see the source Heat wave

450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths in Turkey

2005-07-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted," Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam.

The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas, located in Van province in eastern Turkey, tops $100,000, a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP per head is around $2,700.

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying. "But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."

Click here to see the source of the story. 450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths in Turkey

Accusations hurled at hot dog contest

2005-07-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK -- On Thursday, competitive eating made a lot of progress in proving that it is indeed a sport. Like the NFL, NHL and NBA, it apparently needs instant replay.

Takeru Kobayashi, center, won the title with 50 1/2 hot dogs, while Eric Booker, right, finished second with 26.
Japanese professional speed-eater Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi destroyed the competition for the second consecutive year at the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July international hot dog eating contest, scarfing down 50½ hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes.

The 24-year-old Kobayashi, who weighed 113 pounds before the contest and almost 120 pounds after, bettered his 2001 world-record performance by half a hot dog despite having to fight off the 100-degree heat. He also covered the spread of Internet gamblers, who favored him to win by 20 hot dogs.

But in the final seconds, with many of the 20 competitors already satisfied with their effort, Kobayashi's body heaved as his cheeks ballooned with remnants. Since visible regurgitation during competition means a disqualification, many in the crowd cried foul and waited for the title to be given to Eric "Badlands" Booker, who finished second with 26 hot dogs.

Seconds after the contestants were told to put down their hot dogs, Kobayashi's individual judge, Gersh Kuntzman of the New York Post, and Mike Devito, the commissioner of the International Federation of Competitive Eating (which sanctioned the contest), ruled that the victory was official.

"It's the Raiders-Patriots game all over again," joked Rich Shea, president of the IFOCE.

But instant replay would not overturn the fumble, as it did during the AFC divisional playoffs.

Kobayashi captured the coveted Mustard Yellow Belt for the second consecutive year.
"If you suffer a roman-method incident (the IFOCE's term for regurgitating) during the contest, it's an immediate DQ," said Rich's brother George, the chairman of the federation, which would later review the tapes as a formality. "My understanding is this not only happened after the contest, but that none of the hot dogs and buns actually hit the table or the floor."

Footage captured by ESPN confirms that some hot dog slush did spill through Kobayashi's fingers and pieces of liquid bun spouted out of his nose, but footage shows time had already expired.

"I feel good I got over the 50 mark, even by a half," said Kobayashi, through an interpreter. Others weren't as satisfied.

"He should be disqualified, period," said "Hungry" Charles Hardy, a 5-foot-11, 360-pound New York City corrections officer who had 20 hot dogs. "Eric should have that belt. I mean, I had people in Atlanta call me on my cell phone saying they saw it on TV." While eating a 15-foot sushi roll during the Glutton Bowl on Fox in February, Hardy was disqualified for regurgitating.

"I was standing right next to him, but I was too focused on my game," said Booker, a 6-foot-5, 400-pound New York City transit conductor. "I didn't want to suffer the mistakes I had last year, where I was looking around to see what everyone was doing. It was just me and the dogs."

Eating only 26 hot dogs was a somewhat disappointing effort for Booker, who set a new U.S. record of 28 on June 2. Three hours before the competition, Booker boasted that he hoped to "eat one for every state in the union." After seeing Kobayashi use his "Solomon" method -- where he splits the hot dog in half and puts both pieces in his mouth at the same time -- Booker employed a new method this year: "The Double Japanese" (putting two hot dogs in his mouth at one time, then dipping two buns in water and putting them in his mouth at the same time).

Controversy and the international hot dog eating contest actually go hand-and-hand.

Last year, there was another controversy surrounding Kobayashi.

"These (American) guys last year were yelling and screaming drugs, drugs, drugs," said Rich Shea, who noted that contestants accused Kobayashi of using muscle relaxers. "I was with him all morning, and I've seen no evidence of it. As the international federation, it would be our duty to bring drug testing into this sport, but there's just no evidence."

In 1997, when the first of three Japanese champions came on the scene at Coney Island, Shea said competitors complained he had two stomachs. "No one has two stomachs," Shea said. "We're all born with the same stomach."

Click here to see the source Hot Dog Eating Contest

Yale grades portray Kerry as a lackluster student

2005-06-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON -- During last year's presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.

But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago.

In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript indicating that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year.

Kerry, who graduated two years before Bush, got a cumulative 76 for his four years, according to a transcript that Kerry sent to the Navy when he was applying for officer training school. He received four D's in his freshman year out of 10 courses, but improved his average in later years.

The grade transcript, which Kerry has always declined to release, was included in his Navy record. During the campaign the Globe sought Kerry's naval records, but he refused to waive privacy restrictions for the full file. Late last month, Kerry gave the Navy permission to send the documents to the Globe.

Kerry appeared to be responding to critics who suspected that there might be damaging information in the file about his activities in Vietnam. The military and medical records, however, appear identical to what Kerry has already released. This marks the first time Kerry's grades have been publicly reported.

The transcript shows that Kerry's freshman-year average was 71. He scored a 61 in geology, a 63 and 68 in two history classes, and a 69 in political science. His top score was a 79, in another political science course. Another of his strongest efforts, a 77, came in French class.

Under Yale's grading system in effect at the time, grades between 90 and 100 equaled an A, 80-89 a B, 70-79 a C, 60 to 69 a D, and anything below that was a failing grade. In addition to Kerry's four D's in his freshman year, he received one D in his sophomore year. He did not fail any courses.

''I always told my Dad that D stood for distinction," Kerry said yesterday in a written response to questions, noting that he has previously acknowledged that he spent a lot of time learning to fly instead of focusing on his studies.

Kerry's weak grades came despite years of education at some of the world's most elite prep schools, ranging from Fessenden School in Massachusetts to St. Paul's School in New Hampshire.

It is noteworthy, however, that Kerry received a high honor at Yale despite his mediocre grades: He was chosen to deliver his senior class oration, a testament to his reputation as a public speaker. He delivered a speech questioning the wisdom of the Vietnam War, in which he would soon see combat.

Kerry gradually improved his grades, averaging 81 in his senior year. His highest single grade was an 89, for a political science class in his senior year. Despite his slow start, he went on to be a top student at Naval Candidate School, command a patrol boat in Vietnam, graduate from law school, and become a prosecutor, lieutenant governor, US senator, and presidential candidate.

In his Navy application, Kerry made clear that he spent much of his college time on extracurricular activities, including the Yale Political Union, the Debating Association, soccer, hockey, fencing, and membership in the elite Skull and Bones Society. Asked to describe nonschool training that qualified him for the Navy, Kerry wrote: ''A great deal of sailing -- ocean and otherwise, including some navigation. Scuba diving. Rifle. Beginning of life saving." He said his special interests were ''filming," writing, and politics, noting that the latter subject occupied 15 hours per week.

Gaddis Smith, a retired Yale history professor who taught both Kerry and Bush, said in a telephone interview that he vividly remembers Kerry as a student during the 1964-1965 school year, when Kerry would have been a junior. However, Smith said he doesn't have a specific memory about Bush.

Based on what Smith recalls teaching that year, Kerry scored a 71 and 79 in two of Smith's courses. When Smith was told those scores, he responded: ''Uh, oh. I thought he was good student. Those aren't very good grades." To put the grades in perspective, Smith said that he had a well-earned reputation for being tough, and noted that such grades would probably be about 10 points higher in a similar class today because of the impact of what he called ''grade inflation."

Bush went to Yale from 1964 to 1968; his highest grades were 88s in anthropology, history, and philosophy, according to The New Yorker article. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy. Bush has said he was a C student.

Like Kerry, Bush reportedly suffered through a difficult freshman year and then pulled his grades up.

Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com.

Click on the link to see the source. Yale grades portray Kerry as a lackluster student - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Washington - News

Memorial Day

2005-05-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

Originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.Read the history of this celebrated day and information on US War Memorials here: http://www.usmemorialday.org/

Insane Cat Lady

2005-05-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Mon May 23, 8:24 AM ET

A woman who founded a "no-kill" animal shelter was charged with health code and animal welfare violations after 200 dead cats were discovered rotting in garbage bags in her backyard.

Marlene Kess, who has built a reputation in Manhattan as a caretaker of homeless and dying cats, had 48 cats inside her house, including 38 in one room, authorities said.

Out back, 200 vermin-infested cat corpses were stuffed into garbage bags and apparently were going to be buried in a large hole that had recently been dug, said Sgt. Joseph Bierman of the state's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The cats were discovered after neighbors complained about the stench.

"Oh my God, it was awful," said Michael Fowler of the Associated Humane Societies. "The smell was horrible."

Kess, 56, is the founder and executive director of Kitty-Kind, which runs one of New York City's few no-kill shelters.

She said the cats died of natural causes. State SPCA spokesman Matt Stanton told The Star-Ledger of Newark an investigation into the death of the cats is "ongoing."

A longtime resident of Greenwich Village, Kess moved to East Orange in July.

"I take very good care of them," Kess told reporters Friday. "People who know me know there's no cruelty involved."

Kess was cited for health code violations, including keeping an unlawful number of animals, harboring dead animals and causing an environmental hazard with the corpses. The SPCA, which enforces the state's animal cruelty laws, charged Kess with 38 counts of failing to properly shelter cats.

Authorities are allowing Kess to keep the 48 cats in her home because she promised to separate the sick animals from the healthy ones, Bierman said.

Clink on the link to see the source. 200 Dead Cats Found in N.J. Woman's Home on Yahoo! News

I am a closet Geek

2005-05-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Fan-Boys and Geeks let us unite in our overwhelming Joygazm that is Star War III.
I know on a personal level I have been waiting for this one since I saw the teaser last year. Finally we get to see the fall of Anakin as he transforms into Darth Vader. Now there has been alot of talk in the blogisphere about latent political messages in this movie. Personally I don't care about that, I am just going to sit down and enjoy myself. To often now a day's(especially with the very left leaning Hollywood community) we miss out on the shear entertainment factor of movies because we get to caught up in our own personal politics. I think the best example of this was the movie "Day After Tomorrow". This movie was filled to the brim with environmentalist talking points, but underneath all that crap was a fun enjoyable flick. We as conservatives need to look past the obivious crap and find the enjoyable parts of the various Hollywood productions.

Well that's enough for now, let me get off this soapbox before I slip and fall.

President Vicente Fox

2005-05-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

Today's bone head quote goes to Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Here's what Fox said: "There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work, are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States".

OMG

2005-05-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

Could it be? Did I actually post something? My time is now open a bit so the post should commence on a regular basis.

Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech

2005-05-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic WriterWed May 11, 9:13 PM ET

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, recalling how her father took up arms to defend fellow blacks from racist whites in the segregated South, said Wednesday the constitutional right of Americans to own guns is as important as their rights to free speech and religion.
In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Rice said she came to that view from personal experience. She said her father, a black minister, and his friends armed themselves to defended the black community in Birmingham, Ala., against the White Knight Riders in 1962 and 1963. She said if local authorities had had lists of registered weapons, she did not think her father and other blacks would have been able to defend themselves.
Birmingham, where Rice was born in 1954, was a focal point of racial tension. Four black girls were killed when a bomb exploded at a Birmingham church in 1963, a galvanizing moment in the fight for civil rights.
Rice said she favored background checks and controls at gun shows. However, she added, "we have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that the Founding Fathers thought very important."
Rice said the Founding Fathers understood "there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Ala., when, in fact, the police weren't going to protect you."
"I also don't think we get to pick and choose from the Constitution," she said in the interview, which was taped for airing Wednesday night. "The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment."
The First Amendment protects religious, press and speech freedoms as well as the rights to assemble and petition the government. The Second Amendment guarantees "a well-regulated militia" and "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." Gun-rights supporters and those who favor gun control disagree over whether the amendment guarantees individual gun ownership.

I am a slacker

2005-02-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

Well not really. Life has been very complicated and busy for me the past 6 months and unfortunately my blog has suffered for it. I am trying to piece things back together bit by bit so I still might not be posting as regularly as I would like to. Now, I don't want everyone to think that all is lost with me, because it most definately is not. I am in a rebuliding process right now and the future does look pretty bright. So that being said I cannot promise that I will be posting everyday like I have in the past, but I will try to post at least a couple of times a week. Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

Update from Dave in IRAQ

2005-02-15T15:03:00.000-08:00

Email from Dave - Jan 30, 05

Dear Dad

Today, the interim Iraqi Government held elections. I am not sure how the media is portraying the day's events; but I thought you might want to know how things went here in Fallujah.

Part of the motivation for the attack on insurgents in Fallujah back in November was to set the conditions for successful elections to be held 30 January. It was understood going into the attack that Fallujah had become a source of instability and violence that radiated to all corners of Iraq. If the insurgent leadership headquarted inside the city was not directly projecting operations to cities as far away as Basrah or Mosul, their activities and overt posture undoubtedly inspired insurgents in other parts of the country to continue.

Once the Marines, Soldiers and Sailors were finally turned loose on the muj in the city, they dealt the enemy a crushing defeat. As I have described to you earlier, one of the most effective weapons the insurgents have employed to date is their propaganda. They lord over the people of Iraq by maintaining a very credible atmosphere of fear and intimidation. However, they also focus their information efforts inward.

When recruiting a 22-year-old Syrian or sustaining the morale of a 19-year-old Saudi, the mantra concerning Fallujah was common: "The Americans will never enter the city. They are afraid to fight us face-to-face and their people will never accept the casualties necessary to remove us from the city." We know this to be true. Their information efforts were very effective and resulted in a brazen defiance among the muj and a life of fear and subjugation among the people.

When the Marines finally took the city, it was a tremendous psychological defeat to the enemy in addition to the obvious tremendous losses in enemy personnel and supplies. The dogged, relentless pursuit lead by the Captains and Sergeants in hunting down the final pockets of enemy inside the city and destroying them in exceptionally close and violent engagements following the main battle further cemented November's losses. It is becoming obvious that the inescapable reality of the insurgents' plight and the foundation of lies upon which they pinned their cause in the end was both obvious to them and to the population that was watching closely from the edges of the city as well.

In the ensuing weeks as the population returned, the Marines have committed an amazing effort to cleaning the city and coexisting with the people. The planning and work that went into November's offensive was extensive but now it pales in comparison to the effort that has been made to make the city livable again while building a relationship with the people of Fallujah themselves.

The Marines' days have been spent mentoring new Iraqi soldiers, removing debris, delivering potable water to tanks placed throughout the city, organizing civic leadership, and a myriad of other tasks you would never expect of young men who fought so hard to take the city at great personal cost. However, even as these humanitarian efforts continue daily, the Marines know that the enemy wants nothing more than to re-enter the city and return it to the violent abyss where it resided at the beginning of November. It is impossible for me to put into words how these young men are able to travel the spectrum of violence and emotions every day and simply continue to deliver without failure. It is easy to become cynical and believe that the local people do not appreciate the positive aspects of the effort. Today, it appears as if they do.

During the weeks leading up to the elections, the enemy had been relentless in his threats and posturing against the people and has made it very clear that anyone who attempted to vote would be killed. Compared to the average American, the Iraqi people have lived a life of extreme violence and fear. Because of this, the insurgents' threats did not fall on deaf ears.

In all honesty, we expected a very light turnout at the polls in Fallujah. To provide just a couple of specific examples of the terror campaign that has been ongoing in this area consider the following:

Several days ago, in the area just south of the city, Marines found a local sheik dead in the road. His hands were tied behind his back and he had been shot from behind. On his body, a rock was placed over a note that read that the sheik was cooperating with coalition forces and that anyone else who did so would meet the same fate.
Down the road in Ramadi, two Iraqi Solders were kidnapped, beheaded and left in the street. Their heads were placed on their bodies and cigarettes had been put in their mouths.
Rumors of huge explosions and suicide attacks on polling places were widely circulated.
With this backdrop in mind, today's elections began shortly after dawn. Even though the days for the Marines here tend to run together, this morning was different. By dawn, the Regiment had surged and both Iraqi Soldiers and Americans canvassed the streets.

Five polling places were established inside Fallujah. As the polling stations opened, trucks of Iraqi Soldiers began arriving to vote at one of the primary stations. The enthusiasm of the Iraqis surprised the Marines. Watching them move past the Marines and Iraqis on the perimeter of the site and then reemerge from the polling tent, the best description I can offer was "joyful." They got it. As bleak as things have seemed to them over the past two years, this morning was a tangible reward for their personal courage and sacrifice.

As the locals saw the Iraqi Soldiers emerging from the polling tent and exchanging handshakes with the Marines, they began to slowly emerge from their houses. The Regimental CO ordered the PSYOP trucks to begin broadcasting wake up calls extolling the locals that the polling centers were open and secure and that the people should come out and vote.

Seeing must have been believing because before we knew it, they were emerging from their houses and moving into line to vote. The first person I actually saw go into the polling tent was a woman who came out alone. Others soon followed. Even after everything the Marines have seen, it was an amazing site.

Nearby, the Marines were walking through a recently established open-air market on a street corner. People gathered around and informal conversations began between them and the Marines. This same intersection had been a muj strong point just weeks before. This morning, Marines and locals were on the same intersection shooting the breeze as elections were taking place down the block. As the day went on, more and more people came out to vote. The positive atmosphere seemed to build.

Just a few images as the day progressed:

HMMWV"s parked in the median of the main avenue through town with Marines hanging out talking with Iraqis as they walked to the polling center.
A few people actually seeking Marines, Soldiers and Sailors out on the street and thanking them relating that it was the first time in their lives their votes meant something.
A truck pulling up to a polling site overflowing with Iraqi Soldiers going to vote. The Soldiers were actually singing in the back of the truck and then jogging through the wire to get to the polling station.
Kids going through the polling centers with their parents.
Kids lined up outside the polling centers to watch.
Marines on rooftops overwatching the polling centers taking in the first free elections in an area they literally just fought through weeks before.
The RCT SgtMaj attaching a full sized Iraqi flag to the back of his vehicle and driving through the city being greeted by thumbs up and shouts of encouragement from both the Iraqi soldiers and citizens.
Of course not everyone voted in Fallujah today but just under eight thousand people did. No one expected such a turn out and any voting in Fallujah at all seemed like fantasy just three months ago.

There are no delusions here as the insurgency is still alive and well and the Marines know that Fallujah remains a dangerous place. There is still much work to be done. Just outside the city, guys were still fighting their tails off today. But for one day in Fallujah it was great to watch the Marines and Iraqi Soldiers enjoy a little success that they sacrificed so much to earn.

Tomorrow will probably be back to business as usual. However, even after all that the Marines have seen and been through you could see it on their faces - Today was a good day.

See you soon,

Dave

Click on the link to see the source. The Green Side

Born in Iraq, raised in America

2005-02-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

Born in Iraq, raised in America
Stryker Brigade Soldier's passion to help comes from his past

QAYARRAH, Iraq - Pfc. Husam Razaq Almusowi was born in Iraq, but raised in Dearborn, Mich. When asked: Where are you from, he replies "that's a difficult question." According to his fellow Soldiers in the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, Almusowi's journey to become an American Soldier is an unforgettable tale of courage and sacrifice.
A young boy
Born in the southern Iraq city of Samawi, Almusowi lived the life of a prince. His room was covered in marble and his peers treated him like a god. In the Arabic culture, the name Almusowi is of great prominence. All Almusowis are thought to be descendents of the Islam Prophet Mohammed.
Even as a child, grown men would stand to their feet when Almusowi walked into a room and call him sir. "My family name garners great respect from Muslims, both the Shia and Sunnis," he said.
His father commanded a tank division for the Iraqi army, a position that contributed to the reverence of the Almusowi name. Although he was a brigadier general in Saddam's army, Almusowi's father did not believe in Saddam Hussein's leadership.
"My father never had a bad thought of any man except for Saddam," he said. "All I knew about Saddam was that he was not good for Iraq."
Almusowi's father knew a lot about Saddam Hussein and he didn't hide his feelings about the former dictator. Weeks before the first Gulf War in 1991, he and several other men attempted to overthrow Hussein's regime and end the decade of tyranny his people had endured.
Saddam's Republican Guard discovered the general's plan and a judge sentenced Almusowi's father to death. "The judge told my father that he would do him a favor by hanging him while he was young, so he wouldn't sit in prison for the rest of his life," Almusowi said.
On day one of the Gulf War, the United States bombed Iraqi military facilities in Samawi and the prisoners escaped during the chaos. Almusowi was scheduled to be hung on the day he walked out of prison, but he would not see his wife, three boys and two girls for another five months.
The journey
As the bombing continued in the first days of the war, Almusowi could feel the impact of bombs and could see the billowing clouds of smoke from the window of his room.
"I was just a kid," he remembers. "I was too young to know what was going on and too young to be scared."
Escaping the bombs, large groups of Iraqis, mostly women and children, fled to Saudi Arabia, where they hoped to find safety at a refugee camp. Almusowi remembers the journey as if it were yesterday.
"We hitchhiked and walked all the way across the desert," he said. "We camped out in the desert of southern Iraq and in the desert you can't see anything at night. I remember finding a star and didn't know what it was."
When Almusowi awoke, he still had the metal insignia of a star in his hand. The morning light revealed the horror of their surroundings.
"There were dead soldiers all around us and the star was an officer's rank," he said. "We spent the next day burying them and then we continued to move toward the border."
Once they reached Saudi Arabia, the group was lost. "All we saw was desert, but we kept moving, hoping we'd find somebody or one of the camps."
With little water and food, the women and children walked through the endless desert for five days. Then, when it felt like his feet couldn't take another step, Almusowi heard a thumping sound from a distance.
"American Soldiers driving Bradley's found us," he said. "They were so kind to us. My father always spoke highly of the Americans."
Almusowi's first introduction to an American was a U.S. Army Soldier handing him a Meal Ready to Eat (MRE).
"I'll never forget it. I ate the Skittles," he said.
The Soldiers transported Almusowi and his group to Rafah, Saudi Arabia, where he would spend the next 10 months living in tents, away from the only country he knew and separated from his father. He was 11 years old.
The United States
Almusowi can't remember the exact day he was reunited with his father, but he does recall being overwhelmed with emotion.
"When my uncle and father showed up in our camp, I was so happy," he said. "My family was together again."
As he'd done for so many years, Almusowi's father comforted his children, assuring them every thing would be all right. He was right.
Each family at the refugee camp selected a country where they wanted to live. Almusowi's father selected the United States.
"Dad chose the United States because it was like the promised land, where nothing was impossible," Almusowi said.
The day the Almusowi family boarded a plane to the United States was also the first time Almusowi saw the earth from the clouds.
"My first plane ride was for three days all the way around the world," he said.
When Almusowi's feet touched American soil, he began to embrace his new surroundings.
"The first week we were there, a bunch of the Iraqis went to the beach," he said. "It wasn't a culture shock seeing women in bikinis for the first time, but it was definitely different. Iraqi men jumped in the ocean in blue jeans. We were all just so happy to be in the United States."
The Almusowi family moved to Dearborn, Mich., where a large Arabic population resides. Almusowi began to learn English immediately.
"The first thing I saw on television was the show Cops, and the words to the song "Bad Boys" were the first words I ever spoke in English," he said.
The next 11 years of his life would be much different than his first 11. Almusowi became an artist, played soccer for Fordson High School and received a bachelor's degree in history from Michigan State University. He married and witnessed the birth of his child. He was living the American dream as a citizen, yet his homeland remained in shambles.
Returning to Iraq
Almusowi joined the U.S. Army when the United States was threatening war against the regime of Saddam Hussein in an effort to give something back.
"I wanted to give back to the country that gave me so much opportunity and to help the country that gave me life," he said.
In basic training, drill sergeants frequently asked Almusowi if he was ready to go to war in Iraq. Almusowi always said yes, but with a follow up statement.
"I always said we're not at war with Iraq. We are at war with Saddam Hussein, the Ba'ath Party and the terrorists, who do not represent Iraq," he said.
When he re-entered the country seven months ago with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Almusowi drove through his hometown of Samawi as the convoy headed north.
"During the convoy from Kuwait to Iraq, I was speechless and to this day, can't fully explain what it feels like being back in Iraq," he said. "I absorbed every little thing on the trip - from the rocks to the houses to the people on the streets waving at us."
But the longer he's stayed in his place of origin, the more he realizes his homeland's plight.
"I see so much hunger, pain and destruction," he said. "This is not the Iraq I remember."
As an interpreter, Almusowi does not settle for what he sees. He's in Iraq to make a difference.
On many occasions, Almusowi is the lead interpreter for important meetings between Coalition leaders and top Iraqi government officials. Considering Arabic and English are complex languages with few similarities, his leaders place a lot of faith in his abilities.
"He's a great interpreter and a good kid," said Capt. Matthew Lillibridge, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps liaison officer for 5-20. "He definitely has a lot more responsibility placed on him than your average private first class."
There are times when Almusowi doesn’t sleep because he's translating letters thought to be written by terrorists. In his spare time, he teaches ICDC soldiers how to read and write Arabic and English. In the town of Qayarrah, Lillibridge said Almusowi has won over every Iraqi he's spoken to.
"He receives instant respect from the Iraqis because he's an Iraqi and an American Soldier," Lillibridge said. "Almusowi is an invaluable asset to our efforts in Iraq because they can see the passion he has for the Iraqi people when he talks to them. He's won the respect of his fellow Soldiers as well for his commitment to the United States."
Almusowi's passion for the present comes from his past.
"I don't want what happened to me to happen to another kid. If I can make a difference in one person while I'm here, I've done my job," he said. "Who knows where I would have ended up if the American Soldiers didn't find us 13 years ago?"
"The way I look at it, I'm doing my duties as a Soldier and a little bit more because I am Iraqi."

Click here to see the source of the story. Born in Iraq, raised in America

A Real Hero

2005-02-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

Amputee heading back to battlefield
Fort Carson captain prepares for redeployment, releases book

By Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News
February 14, 2005

FORT CARSON - Inside the place where there is no camouflage, Capt. David Rozelle sat near the pool, dressed only in a swimsuit. He unsheathed his leg from his prosthetic foot and stared at the stump.

"This is the only place that people can see it," he said, as he sat near the water, rubbing the raw skin and atrophied muscle.

"If I go someplace and sit in the hot tub, as soon as they see me take off the prosthetic, I know it's going to happen. I know I'm going to have to tell my story."

It's a tale he's repeated countless times during the past year - a story that begins just before a massive explosion in Iraq and continues as Rozelle struggles to become the first amputee certified by the Army to return to the same battlefield where he was injured. It's a story Rozelle never knew how to end.

"Now, I don't have to tell the story over and over again," Rozelle said, just before slipping into the swimming pool.

"Now I can just tell them, 'Go buy the book.' "

Less than one month before Rozelle returns to Iraq, the 32-year-old will see the release today of his autobiography, Back in Action. As the commander of a troop with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, however, he has little time to promote the book.

He still has to live through the title.

Chapter 1: The Price of Freedom

As we began rolling, everything exploded. . . . It felt as if I were setting my right foot into soft mud or a sponge. I looked down to see blood and bits of bone squeezing out of the side of my right boot. I gave one big push to dive into the arms of two brave men who ran selflessly into the minefield to save me. . . .

That was the last time I ever used my right foot.

Shortly after moving into his new office at Fort Carson, Rozelle placed a mangled hubcap at the end of his desk. When his Humvee hit the land mine, the chunk of metal landed 100 meters away.

"When someone would come in whining about something I would just look over and stare at it," he said.

By now, the hubcap - along with nearly everything else that usually sits in his office - is in storage, until he returns from Iraq. He is preparing his troops for an early March deployment, having already overseen the shipment of materiel headed for the war zone - from 35-ton Bradley fighting vehicles to dozens of squeaky office chairs.

All that's left now is his personal luggage.

"I'm taking a bag of legs," he said, motioning toward the prosthetics he's collected over the past several months. "I'll take the backup walker, the high activity prosthetic and the runner."

Now back to his predeployment weight, Rozelle looks nothing like the scrawny soldier who returned from the war on crutches. At times, he can bark orders that silence a room. Mostly, however, he commands with humor, cracking jokes with a combination of self-deprecating wit and creative obscenity.

When it comes to his injury, Rozelle remains blunt. If someone tries to speak delicately about the explosion that took his foot, he'll jump in and ask, "Oh, you mean when I was blown up?" When asked how he's doing, he's likely to reply, with a smile, "I'm busier than a one-legged man in a (butt)-kicking contest."

As the countdown continues to deployment there is almost always someone waiting in Rozelle's office, asking him to review administrative papers or answer last-minute questions. On a recent afternoon, the line of soldiers was three deep, with two sergeants hovering just outside the door.

"The pen is, indeed, often mightier than the sword," Rozelle said, shaking his head, scribbling another signature.

Rozelle's computer screen saver is a recent photo taken after he completed a "Half-Ironman" competition (1.2 miles swimming, 56 miles biking and 13.1 miles running) in California. He breaks up each day with exercise: one hour lifting weights in the gym, 40 minutes of swimming and a half-hour of running. He says he's in the best shape of his life.

He also says he has no choice.

"I don't work out every day because I want to be ripped like I was when I was 18," he said. "I do it because it's what you need to do to make these prosthetic devices work."

When wearing his regular prosthetic, he walks with a distinctive hitch in his step. But when he straps on his specially designed spring-action running leg and hits the track, his gait is smooth, rhythmic.

As he jogs off down the track, it is perhaps Rozelle's single defining image:

Even with one foot, he runs better than he walks.

Chapter 3: The War Machine Starts Turning

We were finally issued our deployment orders on Valentine's Day, 2003, sixteen months after 11 September. It was a Friday morning, and Kim and I were enjoying a day off from our regular skiing routine. We had been expecting the call, but not on the day reserved for lovers. . . .

As the countdown nears to deployment, every hour counts. Rozelle's first meeting begins at 6 a.m., with an assembly of his platoon sergeants.

Though his newly assigned regimental headquarters troop likely will not participate in the kinds of missions he led during his first deployment as a tank commander, he knows that the realities of Iraq mean nobody's ever safe.

That also means a new emphasis on training.

"There's a lot more awareness now. And it's made us a better Army. We're better and we're stronger. It's amazing how much better every soldier is," Rozelle said. "Now, even the guy whose job it is to handle re-enlistments has the same level of (concern) as the one who's manning the front gate. It's amazing."

Inside the meetings, the platoon sergeants discuss personnel issues and an upcoming seminar on how to fill out their wills. This time - as soldiers brace for their second tour in three years - Rozelle also told them to keep an ear to family concerns.

"Guys are going to start to screw up because they're stressed about the deployment, they're stressed about their family," Rozelle said. "Continue to be tough on them, but take a good, hard look at what might be going on. The solution might be as simple as, 'Take a day off to go and handle that.' "

After the meeting broke up, more soldiers flooded Rozelle's office. Nearby, 38-year-old 1st Sgt. Rodney Greene - Rozelle's senior adviser - thought back to the captain's first days, as the troops met the man who would lead them into the next battle.

"When he first took over, some of the soldiers may have had concerns about him, saying, 'Man, I don't know about this guy - he's missing a foot.' But as they watch him out there running, they say, 'Man he's in better shape than me.' Now they don't even want to run with him. They know he'll beat them.

"I know a lot of soldiers who were having trouble with physical training, they're now saying, 'If he can do it, then I can.' I think it takes a lot of heart to do what he's doing. And it's instilled a lot of pride in these soldiers."

Chapter 4: In Her Own Words, by Kim Rozelle

At about eight and a half months pregnant, I was waking up early in the morning. I was up that morning watching the news before the Saturday morning cartoons came on. I always liked having cartoons on the television on Saturday mornings. It distinguished the day from the weekdays to me. It was about 8:30 a.m. when I heard the doorbell. . . .

With 18-month-old Forrest Rozelle on her lap, Kim Rozelle sat on her couch, thinking back to the pain that her husband refused to allow anyone else to see.

"He had some real lows, which is understandable - he'd just lost part of his body," Kim Rozelle said.

"He had his moments when he'd get upset and cry. He was most upset that he couldn't (pick up) the baby. That was his biggest disappointment."

She looked down at the boy who was born two weeks after his father returned from the war, the toddler who still treats his father's fake leg as a plaything.

"David said, 'What is Forrest going to think of me without a foot?' I said, 'Well, he's not going to know any different. He may grow up wondering why he has two feet instead of one.' "

Their relationship - and his recovery - has been punctuated by similar conversations, along with plenty of good-natured razzing.

"He goes out all day and he shows what a Superman he is and then he comes home and goes (she assumes a whiny baby voice), 'Oooh, my stump hurts. Could you rub it?' "

If they're both sitting on the couch, Rozelle knows not to ask his wife to fetch him a beer. He knows he'll get The Look instead.

"I'm pretty good at the tough love thing. I have a lot of sympathy for him, but I'm never going to pity him," Kim Rozelle said.

"I never have and I never will."

Chapter 12: My New Mission: Amputee Support

It's never easy to sit down with someone who is blind and is missing both arms and a leg. But I keep going (to Walter Reed Army Hospital) because it is important - for me and them. It has helped me heal, physically and mentally. By challenging those soldiers to stick with their treatment and therapy and prepare for the new world I have discovered, I have become whole.

In the midst of an incredibly hectic day, Rozelle opened up his e-mail and smiled.

"This one's from a 34-year-old with muscular dystrophy," Rozelle said, pointing to the address of a new friend.

"Someone said, 'If you go and visit him and make him an honorary Cavalryman, it will change his life.' It did. There's another kid I'm helping with no legs and no forehead. An awesome, awesome guy."

In the past several months, Rozelle has signed on as a spokesman for several different organizations for people with disabilities - both military and nonmilitary - and often spends his evenings coaching people he's never met.

"What I've had to be careful with is not to get overstretched," he said. "Someone will write me and say, 'My brother was in a car wreck and he's having his leg amputated tomorrow - can you go and speak to him?' It's emotional, and it's difficult to do that over and over again."

In six months, that will be his full-time job. After returning from Iraq, Rozelle is scheduled to move to Washington, D.C., where he will help oversee a new amputee center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

After visiting the hospital on a monthly basis since his injury - sometimes recruiting soldiers to come skiing with him in Colorado - he's met with nearly 200 amputees from the war in Iraq. He's also learned that not all wounds heal the same.

"In the beginning I just tried to be a commander and command people into getting out of their beds. I've definitely had to adjust that for many soldiers," he said. "Different people are motivated in different ways. Not everyone is motivated with a kick in the (butt). Some people just need time."

In the book, Rozelle deals honestly with the period he spent feeling sorry for himself. He writes of kicking an addiction to morphine that accompanied the amputation and a bout of drinking too much that came with the recovery. Those struggles, along with much of the daily pain, are hidden when he tucks his uniform over his prosthetic.

When people see all that he's achieved - a book deal, a new job, national television exposure - he said they sometimes ignore what he overcomes each day.

"People have actually asked me now, 'Isn't your life better now than before you were injured?' "

He paused. "Just because someone makes the most of something that doesn't mean it's . . . "

He stopped again, allowing his anger to subside.

"I wake up every morning without a foot."

Chapter 10: Fit for Duty

I believe that I will not be hindered in any way from performing all the duties of a cavalry officer. My future assignments do not include any physical activities that I cannot do now. I can fulfill all of the duties associated with my MOS, and am ready to prove them . . .

As he leaves his home on Bayonet Circle, Rozelle passes the Army equivalent of Burma Shave signs posted along the way:

"I will always place the mission first."

"I will never accept defeat."

"I will never quit."

At the end another long day, Rozelle, changed into sweat pants, removed his prosthetic and rubbed the end of his leg.

"It hurts," he said. "Just wearing boots all day can be uncomfortable, but I'm wearing this big prosthetic device. As well as it's made, nothing is comfortable."

As he prepares to return to Iraq, he says he's confident in the mission. Though he's had devastating days since returning - such as the time he learned that the police chief he personally installed was assassinated - he said he sees the recent election as vindication.

Inside his home, he looked at one of the first copies of Back in Action.

"There's so much that's happened even since I finished that one," he said. "So much to come."

With that in mind, he's continued to keep a journal - a book-in-progress that already has a tentative title.

"It will be the sequel," he said. "Back from Action."

About Capt. David Rozelle

• Military honors: Bronze Star with Valor for actions in combat, Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal (four awards), Army Achievement Medal (three awards)

• Present duty: Command of Regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Troop of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment based at Fort Carson

• Future duty: Amputee Care Program military administrator at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C

Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

Click on the link to see the source. Rocky Mountain News: America At War

2005 Inaugural openning prayer

2005-01-28T10:01:00.000-08:00

Let us pray.
Most gracious and eternal God, we gather here today as a grateful people who enjoy the many blessings you have bestowed on this nation. We are grateful for your vision, which inspired the founders of our nation to create this democratic experiment as one nation, under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

We are grateful to you that you have brought to these shores a multitude of peoples of many ethnic, religious and language backgrounds and yet have fashioned one nation out of so many cultures and traditions.

Even as we celebrate our -- this great moment, we remember before you the members of our Armed Forces. We commend them to your care. Give them courage to carry out their duties and courage the face the perils which we set them, and grant them always the sense of your presence in all that they do.

Finally today, we are especially grateful for this inauguration, which marks a new beginning in our journey as a people and a nation. We pray that you will shower the elected leaders of this land and especially, George, our president, and Richard, our vice president, with your life giving spirit.

Fill them with a love of truth and righteousness that they may serve you and this nation ably and glad to do your will. Endow their hearts with your spirit of wisdom that they may lead us in renewing the ties of mutual respect which form our civic life, so that peace may prevail with righteousness and justice with order.

We pray that you will strengthen their resolve as they lead our nation seeking to serve you in this world, that this good and generous country may be a blessing to the nations of the world.

And may they lead us to become, in the words of Martin Luther King, members of a beloved community, loving our neighbors as ourselves so that all of us may more closely come to fulfill the promise of our Founding Fathers, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All this we ask in your most holy name, Amen.

Click here to see the source. The Presidential Prayer Team

Out of Auschwitz

2005-01-28T09:47:00.000-08:00

"The first Russian patrol came in sight of the camp about midday on January 27, 1945. Charles and I were the first to see them: We were carrying Somogyi's body to the common grave, the first of our roommates to die."

So writes Primo Levi, in describing the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in his classic account The Reawakening.

This week the world marked the 60th anniversary of that day with an unprecedented degree of attention. Seminars and ceremonies were held around the globe while statesmen and clergy personally attended the proceedings at Auschwitz. Even the UN, which had shamefully failed to mark the Holocaust in previous years, held a special General Assembly session, handing the podium over to survivor Elie Wiesel.

All this represents undeniable progress in marking a chapter unmatched in human history for its senseless cruelty. That said, mankind is still far from absorbing and applying the lessons it must draw from the Holocaust. And those cannot be learned if the uniqueness and gravity of the Holocaust are still questioned by moral relativism driven by anti-Semitism or other agendas - such as those of the British Muslim leaders who shunned an inter-faith commemorative ceremony "because it excludes ongoing genocide and human rights abuses around the world, and in the occupied territories of Palestine."

Nor can they be learned if Israel's opponents resort to anti-Semitic propaganda akin to the Nazi dehumanizing of the Jews, as the Palestinian Authority has been shown to do in a newly released Diaspora Affairs Ministry report.

Nor can they be learned if the civilized world still refuses to unequivocally confront those who resort to genocidal tactics - be it in Bosnia, Rwanda, or most recently, Darfur.

Nor can they be learned if even Jews sometimes sink so low as to dub each other "Nazi" or abuse Holocaust symbols for partisan causes.

All this is proof that the ever-growing awareness of the Holocaust, and the major educational efforts undertaken by various institutions, have yet to raise world consciousness to a point of no return back to the mentality of hate and prejudice that first gave rise to Nazism.

Yet awareness is the beginning of all action, and that effort would not even be imaginable in this day and age if the Holocaust's memory were not preserved now to a degree unimaginable in the years of relative silence that followed the war. So let us be grateful that this week the world at least turned its eyes toward Auschwitz and listened to the words spoken there, especially by the survivors whose number now shrinks by the day.

Levi recorded his own feelings upon his liberation and his words ring out simple and profound this week:

"So for us, even the hour of liberty rang out grave and muffled, and filled our souls with joy and yet with a painful sense of prudency, so that we should have liked to wash our consciences and our memories clean from the foulness that lay upon them; and also with anguish, because we felt that this should never happen, that now nothing could ever happen good and pure enough to rub out our past, and that the scars of the outrage would remain within us forever, and in the memories of those who saw it, and in the places where it occurred and in the stories we should tell of it."

Click here to view the source. Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World

Stop or I'll go to the world court

2005-01-28T09:35:00.000-08:00

INVASION USA
Mexico threatens Arizona over anti-illegals measure
Official says challenge in international courts possible to block voter-passed Proposition 200

A Mexican government official has threatened to use international courts to block an Arizona law meant to limit public benefits and voting rights to legal residents of the U.S.

Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said in a radio interview Wednesday that an international strategy would be used if other attempts to reverse Proposition 200 fail, the Associated Press reported.

"We are seeking all the legal opportunities that exist, first using the legal capacities of the United States itself and ... if that does not work, bringing it to international tribunals," AP quotes Derbez as saying.

Mexican officials have repeatedly complained about Proposition 200, which went into effect Tuesday. The statewide measure denies most taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens and requires state workers to report applicants for such benefits who may not be eligible. It also requires anyone registering to vote in the state to show proof of citizenship and bring a government-issued ID to the polling place.

AP reported Derbez expressed regret that, according to polls, about 40 percent of Mexican-Americans in Arizona supported Prop. 200. The measure passed with 60 percent of the vote.

"It's sad, and it gives an idea of how we have to work to educate even our own Mexican-Americans about why it is important that these proposals are not accepted," Derbez said.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has challenged Prop. 200, saying it is "an illegal, impermissible, unconstitutional state attempt to regulate immigration policy, which is a fundamental function and responsibility of our federal government. Proposition 200 is mean-spirited and un-American."

Click here to see the source. Mexico threatens Arizona over anti-illegals measure

Prayer for the nation: inaugural benediction - (BP)

2005-01-21T11:26:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (BP) Kirbyjon Caldwell, senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, delivered the benediction prayer at the close of President Bush's inauguration Jan. 20.

Following is a transcript:

"Oh Lord God Almighty, the supply and supplier of faith and freedom, how excellent is Your name in all the earth. You are great and greatly to be praised. God, as we conclude this 55th inaugural ceremony, we conclude it with an attitude of thanksgiving. Thank You for protecting America's borders. After all, the Psalmist reminds us, unless You, O God, guard the territory, our efforts will be in vain.

"Thank You for our armed service personnel. And it is with unswerving thanksgiving that we pause to remember the persons who have made the ultimate sacrifice to help ensure America's safety. Thank You, O God, for surrounding our personnel, their families, their friends and our allies with Your favor and Your faithfulness.

"Deploy Your hosts from heaven so that Your will for America will be performed on earth as it is already perfected in heaven. I confess that Your face will shine upon the United States of America, granting us social peace and economic prosperity, particularly for the weary and the poor.

"I also confess, God, that each American's latter days will be better than their former days. Let it be unto us according to Your Word.

"Rally the Republicans, the Democrats and the Independents around Your common good so that America will truly become one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, justice and equal opportunity for all -- including the least, the last and the lost.

"Bless every elected official right now. God, I declare Your blessings to shower upon our president, George W. Bush. Bless him, his family and his administration. I once again declare that no weapon formed against them shall prosper.

"God, forgive us for becoming so ensnarled in petty partisan politics that we miss Your glory and block our purpose. Deliver us from the evil one, from evil itself and from the mere appearance of evil.

"Give us clean hearts, so that we might have clean agendas, clean priorities and programs and even clean financial statements.

"Now, unto You, O God, the One who always has been and always will be, the one King of kings and the true power broker, we glorify and honor You.

Respecting persons of all faiths, I humbly submit this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."

Click on the link to see the source. Prayer for the nation: inaugural benediction - (BP)

I'm still alive

2005-01-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

Yes could it be, am I actually posting something? Yes I am still alive. A little beat up but alive. Life has been quite a challenge as of late but it seems to have a glimmer of hope, so I will hold onto that and live my life the way I should. Anyways enough of my ranting about life. Here is the latest email from Dave the marine in Iraq.

Email from Dave - Dec 31, 04

Dear Dad -

For the past six weeks, the Regiment has been busy cleaning up the city and chasing down remaining pockets of insurgents. There have been some very stiff, isolated battles where the Marines continued to perform with the same tenacity and heroism that made them so successful in November. Unfortunately these efforts have not come without a price. We have lost additional Marines and many more have been wounded during these ongoing operations.

The city itself sustained severe damage during the battle itself and in the months leading up to the fight. It took a Herculean effort by the Marine engineers and Naval Construction Battalion Sailors ("Sea Bees") to clear the city. At the height of the battle, there was so much rubble on certain streets that they were impassable even for our tracks and wheeled vehicles. I am amazed at the amount of work these Marines and Sailors have done to get the city somewhat habitable by the civilians. It really is incredible how much effort went into making the city safe for the returning population after the Marines fought so hard to take it. No other force in the world would have made such an effort to take an enemy city and then immediately turn around and begin significant efforts to clean and reconstruct. All of that said, if you saw the city now you would probably still consider it tremendously damaged.

The end state of all the work has been conditions that permit the population to return. To be honest there have been very mixed emotions on having the civilians re-enter the city. On the one hand we know that the city will never be as safe as it was for the few weeks when it was empty following the major fighting. On the other hand, we want to try to get the population back to their lives and participating in Iraq's future - starting with the elections on 30 January.

Once again you would be proud of the Marines and how well they are dealing with all of the challenges that they face daily. Over the past month, the Regiment has received ten battalions of Iraqi army and security forces. Of course they are all fledgling units with only cursory training. Some show up without boots and never having fired their weapons. You have to understand that inheriting such units is a tremendous drain on the combat power of our own battalions. They require an incredible amount of supervision and support just to sustain them. Of course it difficult for the Marines who just took the city to turn around and mentor new Iraqi units while at the same time "clean up the mess." As you would expect, the Marines just shoulder the load and continue surprise us with their endurance and commitment.

Elections are less than a month away. The combination of the smashing defeat the enemy suffered in Fallujah along with the prospect of looming free elections has made them desperate. They regularly threaten the people by telling them that any one who goes to vote will be killed by the muj. They claim to be watching the polling places and continue to state that they will wage suicide attacks on the crowds that assemble there.

You have probably seen from the news that the ongoing murder and intimidation campaign on the Iraqi security forces has continued as well. We recently received a report that an Iraqi soldier in our area was drug from his home and beheaded. The muj barged into his house as he and his family were eating dinner and simply drug him out to his front yard and beheaded him while his wife and children were held inside only feet away. This sounds shocking but it is the world in which the Iraqi people live here and one that would only get worse if they did not have the coalition to help keep the muj at bay. Plainly stated it is pure savagery.

The insurgency is a collection of different elements that have gotten together out of a marriage of convenience and who are galvanized by a common enemy - us. The greatest irony is that the two most prominent players in the insurgency are former regime members from the Ba'ath party and the international Islamic extremists. These two elements are deeply in bed together but they do what they can to keep their alliance secret. The old regime henchmen hide out here in Iraq or just across the border and pump money and direction into the insurgency so that they can some day resume power. The Islamic extremist take the training and money offered by Sadaam's cronies and do the bidding of these criminals so that they can create a sectarian state not unlike the one the Taliban created in Afghanistan. How in the world can you call yourself a holy warrior and be in league with some of the greatest criminals this region has known?

Slowly but surely the people are returning and as you can imagine, there is a high degree of caution on both sides. Overall though, we have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of hostility from the people. Most just seem to want to live their lives. The Marines have seen this and have responded with an equally surprising degree of compassion. However, there is no doubt the muj will do their best to continue their fight without any compunction of putting the "innocent people" in the middle. They are well aware of the danger of the people seeing first hand that we are not "infidel animals" that are waiting to rape their women and children as they have been told. When the enemy senses this crack in its intimidation campaign, it will make the people pay in order to get them back in line. Time will tell how it will work out but we know the next several weeks are going to be tough.

Dave

Click on the link to see the source. The Green Side

A Hero's sacrifice

2004-12-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

FALLUJAH, Iraq (Dec. 2, 2004) "You're still here, don't forget that. Tell your kids, your grandkids, what Sgt. Peralta did for you and the other Marines today."

As a combat correspondent, I was attached to Company A, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment for Operation Al Fajr, to make sure the stories of heroic actions and the daily realities of battle were told.

On this day, I found myself without my camera. With the batteries dead, I decided to leave the camera behind and live up to the ethos "every Marine a rifleman," by volunteering to help clear the fateful buildings that lined streets.

After seven days of intense fighting in Fallujah, the Marines of 1/3 embraced a new day with a faceless enemy.

We awoke November 15, 2004, around day-break in the abandoned, battle-worn house we had made our home for the night. We shaved, ate breakfast from a Meal, Ready-to-Eat pouch and waited for the word to move.

The word came, and we started what we had done since the operation began - clear the city of insurgents, building by building.

As an attachment to the unit, I had been placed as the third man in a six-man group, or what Marines call a 'stack.' Two stacks of Marines were used to clear a house. Moving quickly from the third house to the fourth, our order in the stack changed. I found Sgt. Rafael Peralta in my spot, so I fell in behind him as we moved toward the house.

A Mexican-American who lived in San Diego, Peralta earned his citizenship after he joined the Marine Corps. He was a platoon scout, which meant he could have stayed back in safety while the squads of 1st Platoon went into the danger filled streets, but he was constantly asking to help out by giving them an extra Marine. I learned by speaking with him and other Marines the night before that he frequently put his safety, reputation and career on the line for the needs and morale of the junior Marines around him.

When we reached the fourth house, we breached the gate and swiftly approached the building. The first Marine in the stack kicked in the front door, revealing a locked door to their front and another at the right.

Kicking in the doors simultaneously, one stack filed swiftly into the room to the front as the other group of Marines darted off to the right.

"Clear!" screamed the Marines in one of the rooms followed only seconds later by another shout of "clear!" from the second room. One word told us all we wanted to know about the rooms: there was no one in there to shoot at us.

We found that the two rooms were adjoined and we had another closed door in front of us. We spread ourselves throughout the rooms to avoid a cluster going through the next door.

Two Marines stacked to the left of the door as Peralta, rifle in hand, tested the handle. I watched from the middle, slightly off to the right of the room as the handle turned with ease.

Ready to rush into the rear part of the house, Peralta threw open the door.

'POP! POP! POP!' Multiple bursts of cap-gun-like sounding AK-47 fire rang throughout the house.

Three insurgents with AK-47s were waiting for us behind the door.

Peralta was hit several times in his upper torso and face at point-blank range by the fully-automatic 7.62mm weapons employed by three terrorists.

Mortally wounded, he jumped into the already cleared, adjoining room, giving the rest of us a clear line of fire through the doorway to the rear of the house.

We opened fire, adding the bangs of M-16A2 service rifles, and the deafening, rolling cracks of a Squad Automatic Weapon, or "SAW," to the already nerve-racking sound of the AKs. One Marine was shot through the forearm and continued to fire at the enemy.

I fired until Marines closer to the door began to maneuver into better firing positions, blocking my line of fire. Not being an infantryman, I watched to see what those with more extensive training were doing.

I saw four Marines firing from the adjoining room when a yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade bounced into the room, rolling to a stop close to Peralta's nearly lifeless body.

In an act living up to the heroes of the Marine Corps' past, such as Medal of Honor recipients Pfc. James LaBelle and Lance Cpl. Richard Anderson, Peralta - in his last fleeting moments of consciousness- reached out and pulled the grenade into his body. LaBelle fought on Iwo Jima and Anderson in Vietnam, both died saving their fellow Marines by smothering the blast of enemy grenades.

Peralta did the same for all of us in those rooms.

I watched in fear and horror as the other four Marines scrambled to the corners of the room and the majority of the blast was absorbed by Peralta's now lifeless body. His selflessness left four other Marines with only minor injuries from smaller fragments of the grenade.

During the fight, a fire was sparked in the rear of the house. The flames were becoming visible through the door.

The decision was made by the Marine in charge of the squad to evacuate the injured Marines from the house, regroup and return to finish the fight and retrieve Peralta's body.

We quickly ran for shelter, three or four houses up the street, in a house that had already been cleared and was occupied by the squad’s platoon.

As Staff Sgt. Jacob M. Murdock took a count of the Marines coming back, he found it to be one man short, and demanded to know the whereabouts of the missing Marine.

"Sergeant Peralta! He's dead! He's f------ dead," screamed Lance Cpl. Adam Morrison, a machine gunner with the squad, as he came around a corner. "He's still in there. We have to go back."

The ingrained code Marines have of never leaving a man behind drove the next few moments. Within seconds, we headed back to the house unknown what we may encounter yet ready for another round.

I don't remember walking back down the street or through the gate in front of the house, but walking through the door the second time, I prayed that we wouldn't lose another brother.

We entered the house and met no resistance. We couldn't clear the rest of the house because the fire had grown immensely and the danger of the enemy's weapons cache exploding in the house was increasing by the second.

Most of us provided security while Peralta's body was removed from the house.

We carried him back to our rally point and upon returning were told that the other Marines who went to support us encountered and killed the three insurgents from inside the house.

Later that night, while I was thinking about the day's somber events, Cpl. Richard A. Mason, an infantryman with Headquarters Platoon, who, in the short time I was with the company became a good friend, told me, "You're still here, don't forget that. Tell your kids, your grandkids, what Sgt. Peralta did for you and the other Marines today."

As a combat correspondent, this is not only my job, but an honor.

Throughout Operation Al Fajr, we were constantly being told that we were making history, but if the books never mention this battle in the future, I’m sure that the day and the sacrifice that was made, will never be forgotten by the Marines who were there.

Click on the link to see the source. A Hero's sacrifice

As you can tell it's a picture posting day.

2004-12-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

2004-12-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

Boy Scouts on the Trail. These guys are hams.

2004-12-05T17:28:00.000-08:00

A visit from Arnold to my humble little city.

2004-12-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

Now who is the Man?

Update from Dave in Fallujah

2004-11-23T12:50:00.000-08:00

Pay special attention to the story about Chuck Yeager's grandson.

Dear Dad -

Just came out of the city and I honestly do not know where to start. I am afraid that whatever I send you will not do sufficient honor to the men who fought and took Fallujah.

Shortly before the attack, Task Force Fallujah was built. It consisted of Regimental Combat Team 1 built around 1st Marine Regiment and Regimental Combat Team 7 built around 7th Marine Regiment. Each Regiment consisted of two Marine Rifle Battalions reinforced and one Army mechanized infantry battalion.

Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) consisted of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (3rd LAR), 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5); 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1)and 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (2/7). RCT-7 was slightly less weighted but still a formidable force. Cutting a swath around the city was an Army Brigade known as Blackjack. The Marine RCT's were to assault the city while Blackjack kept the enemy off of the backs of the assault force.

The night prior to the actual invasion, we all moved out into the desert just north of the city. It was something to see. You could just feel the intensity in the Marines and Soldiers. It was all business. As the day cleared, the Task Force began striking targets and moving into final attack positions. As the invasion force commenced its movement into attack positions, 3rd LAR led off RCT-1's offensive with an attack up a peninsula formed by the Euphrates River on the west side of the city. Their mission was to secure the Fallujah Hospital and the two bridges leading out of the city. They executed there tasks like clockwork and smashed the enemy resistance holding the bridges. Simultaneous to all of this, Blackjack sealed the escape routes to the south of the city. As invasion day dawned, the net was around the city and the Marines and Soldiers knew that the enemy that failed to escape was now sealed.

3/5 began the actual attack on the city by taking an apartment complex on the northwest corner of the city. It was key terrain as the elevated positions allowed the command to look down into the attack lanes. The Marines took the apartments quickly and moved to the rooftops and began engaging enemy that were trying to move into their fighting positions. The scene on the rooftop was surreal. Machine gun teams were running boxes of ammo up 8 flights of stairs in full body armor and carrying up machine guns while snipers engaged enemy shooters. The whole time the enemy was firing mortars and rockets at the apartments. Honest to God, I don't think I saw a single Marine even distracted by the enemy fire. Their squad leaders, and platoon commanders had them prepared and they were executing their assigned tasks.

As mentioned, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry joined the Regiment just prior to the fight. In fact, they started showing up for planning a couple of weeks in advance. There is always a professional rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps but it was obvious from the outset that these guys were the real deal. They had fought in Najaf and were eager to fight with the Regiment in Fallujah. They are exceptionally well led and supremely confident.

2/7 became our wedge. In short, they worked with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. We were limited in the amount of prep fires that we were allowed to fire on the city prior to the invasion. This was a point of some consternation to the forces actually taking the city. Our compensation was to turn to 2/7 and ask them to slash into the city and create as much turbulence as possible for 3/1 to follow. Because of the political reality, the Marine Corps was also under pressure to "get it done quickly." For this reason, 2/7 and 3/1 became the penetration force into the city.

Immediately following 3/5's attack on the apartment buildings, 3/1 took the train station on the north end of the city. While the engineers blew a breach through the train trestle, the Cavalry soldiers poured through with their tanks and Bradley's and chewed an opening in the enemy defense. 3/1 followed them through until they reached a phase[line deep into the northern half of the city. The Marine infantry along with a few tanks then turned to the right and attacked the heart of the enemy defense. The fighting was tough as the enemy had the area dialed in with mortars. 3/5 then attacked into the northwest corner of the city. This fight continued as both Marine rifle battalions clawed their way into the city on different axis.

There is an image burned into my brain that I hope I never forget. We came up behind 3/5 one day as the lead squads were working down the Byzantine streets of the Jolan area. An assault team of two Marines ran out from behind cover and put a rocket into a wall of an enemy strongpoint. Before the smoke cleared the squad behind them was up and moving through the hole and clearing the house. Just down the block another squad was doing the same thing. The house was cleared quickly and the Marines were running down the street to the next contact. Even in the midst of that mayhem, it was an awesome site.

The fighting has been incredibly close inside the city. The enemy is willing to die and is literally waiting until they see the whites of the eyes of the Marines before they open up. Just two days ago, as a firefight raged in close quarters, one of the interpreters yelled for the enemy in the house to surrender. The enemy yelled back that it was better to die and go to heaven than to surrender to infidels. This exchange is a graphic window into the world that the Marines and Soldiers have been fighting in these last 10 days.

I could go on and on about how the city was taken but one of the most amazing aspects to the fighting was that we saw virtually no civilians during the battle. Only after the fighting had passed did a few come out of their homes. They were provided food and water and most were evacuated out of the city. At least 90-95% of the people were gone from the city when we attacked.

I will end with a couple of stories of individual heroism that you may not have heard yet. I was told about both of these incidents shortly after they occurred. No doubt some of the facts will change slightly but I am confident that the meat is correct.

The first is a Marine from 3/5. His name is Corporal Yeager (Chuck Yeager's grandson). As the Marines cleared and apartment building, they got to the top floor and the point man kicked in the door. As he did so, an enemy grenade and a burst of gunfire came out. The explosion and enemy fire took off the point man's leg. He was then immediately shot in the arm as he lay in the doorway. Corporal Yeager tossed a grenade in the room and ran into the doorway and into the enemy fire in order to pull his buddy back to cover. As he was dragging the wounded Marine to cover, his own grenade came back through the doorway. Without pausing, he reached down and threw the grenade back through the door while he heaved his buddy to safety. The grenade went off inside the room and Cpl Yeager threw another in. He immediately entered the room following the second explosion. He gunned down three enemy all within three feet of where he stood and then let fly a third grenade as he backed out of the room to complete the evacuation of the wounded Marine. You have to understand that a grenade goes off within 5 seconds of having the pin pulled. Marines usually let them "cook off" for a second or two before tossing them in. Therefore, this entire episode took place in less than 30 seconds.

The second example comes from 3/1. Cpl Mitchell is a squad leader. He was wounded as his squad was clearing a house when some enemy threw pineapple grenades down on top of them. As he was getting triaged, the doctor told him that he had been shot through the arm. Cpl Mitchell told the doctor that he had actually been shot "a couple of days ago" and had given himself self aide on the wound. When the doctor got on him about not coming off the line, he firmly told the doctor that he was a squad leader and did not have time to get treated as his men were still fighting. There are a number of Marines who have been wounded multiple times but refuse to leave their fellow Marines.

It is incredibly humbling to walk among such men. They fought as hard as any Marines in history and deserve to be remembered as such. The enemy they fought burrowed into houses and fired through mouse holes cut in walls, lured them into houses rigged with explosives and detonated the houses on pursuing Marines, and actually hid behind surrender flags only to engage the Marines with small arms fire once they perceived that the Marines had let their guard down. I know of several instances where near dead enemy rolled grenades out on Marines who were preparing to render them aid. It was a fight to the finish in every sense and the Marines delivered.

I have called the enemy cowards many times in the past because they have never really held their ground and fought but these guys in the city did. We can call them many things but they were not cowards.

My whole life I have read about the greatest generation and sat in wonder at their accomplishments. For the first time, as I watch these Marines and Soldiers, I am eager for the future as this is just the beginning for them. Perhaps the most amazing characteristic of all is that the morale of the men is sky high. They hurt for the wounded and the dead but they are eager to continue to attack. Further, not one of them would be comfortable with being called a hero even though they clearly are.

By now the Marines and Soldiers have killed well over a thousand enemy. These were not peasants or rabble. They were reasonably well trained and entirely fanatical. Most of the enemy we have seen have chest rigs full of ammunition and are well armed are willing to fight to the death. The Marines and Soldiers are eager to close with them and the fighting at the end is inevitably close.

I will write you more the next time I come in about what we have found inside the city. All I can say is that even with everything that I knew and expected from the last nine months, the brutality and fanaticism of the enemy surprised me. The beheadings were even more common place than we thought but so were torture and summary executions. Even though it is an exaggeration, it seems as though every block in the northern part of the city has a torture chamber or execution site. There are hundreds of tons of munitions and tens of thousands of weapons that our Regiment alone has recovered. The Marines and Soldiers of the Regiment have also found over 400 IEDs already wired and ready to detonate. No doubt these numbers will grow in the days ahead.

In closing, I want to share with you a vignette about when the Marines secured the Old Bridge (the one where the Americans were mutilated and hung on March 31) this week. After the Marines had done all the work and secured the bridge, we walked across to meet up with 3rd LAR on the other side. On the Fallujah side of the bridge where the Americans were hung there is some Arabic writing on the bridge. An interpreter translated it for me as we walked through. It read: "Long Live the Mujahadeen. Fallujah is the Graveyard for Americans and the end of the Marine Corps."

As I came back across the bridge there was a squad sitting in their Amtrac smoking and watching the show. The Marines had written their own message below the enemy's. It is not something that Mom would appreciate but it fit the moment to a T. Not far from the vehicle were two dead enemy laying where they died. The Marines were sick of watching the "Dog and Pony show" and wanted to get back to work.

Dave

Click on the link to see the source. The Green Side

A message from Baghdad

2004-11-19T11:22:00.000-08:00

Here a great post from the guys at POWERLINE about the Marine doing his job in Faluja.

Our reader Haider Ajina phoned his father in Baghdad for an update on Iraqi sentiment concerning the Marine killing. Haider sends us the following message:

I just got of the phone with my father in Baghdad. I asked him what is the reaction of the Marine killing the injured Iraqi in the Mosque in Felujah. His first words were "Good riddance."

People are not giving it a second thought. Any terrorist who attacks soldiers from Mosques has no sanctuary. Any terrorists who fake death to kill in a mosque deserve no mercy. He says Iraqis (including Sunnis) are fed up with the terrorists and want them eliminated.

There was much uproar about the brutal kidnapping killing of Mrs. Margaret Hassan. Iraqis are upset outraged and disgusted with her brutal abduction & killing. She helped us, helped the poor & needy and this what the terrorist do to her and her family.

He says we must stay strong, united and relentless in the pursuit of the terrorist. Baghdad had relative calm over the last few days. People are even going out in the street till 9:30pm now.

Please spread the message, let America Know that the Iraqis are with us, grateful and want us to stay strong and get stronger so that we can all defeat terrorism.

Haider also writes:

The Iraqi Arabic newspaper "Azaman" reported the following in its Nov. 19th issue: "Israel & Six Arab countries join to fight terrorism." The English translation is as follows:
"NATO announced that it will perform anti terrorist Naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean. These maneuvers will be in partnership with the navies of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunis, Algiers & Mauritania. These forces will train together to better hone their skills in fighting terrorist, drug smugglers and illegal immigration in the Mediterranean basin."
This looks like a step in the right direction. It seems we all have a common enemy now. This a sad but best way to bring people together. We witnessed this in 9-11 right here at home.

UPDATE: To the message from Baghdad let us append this companion piece by Diana West: "Marine just doing his job." West writes:

What I'm getting at, in this land of free speech and home of brave Marines, is my unequivocal belief that Marine X committed no "war crimes" in that fortified Fallujah mosque last week where he shot and killed a prone and wounded terrorist. He was just doing his job - his hellishly dangerous job - and thank God for him...

Who, among the global millions who have watched NBC's videotaped-shooting, realize that a comrade of the Marine in question was killed by a booby-trapped corpse the day before? That same corpse-bomb wounded five others in the unit. And who, among those same millions, realize that even as Marine X, NBC's global anti-hero, was shooting the enemy he suspected was playing possum, just a block away, another explosive-rigged corpse was killing another young Marine?

In that split second of fear and indecision, our guy made the right call...

Condaleeza Rice and the Second Amendment

2004-11-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

Condoleeza Rice has described herself as "a Second Amendment absolutist." An article in the Montgomery Advertiser explains why. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, where her father, a Presbyterian minister, was a strong advocate of civil rights:

Rice has said memories of Birmingham's racial turmoil shaped some of her core values.

During the bombings of the summer of 1963, her father and other neighborhood men guarded the streets at night to keep white vigilantes at bay. Rice said her staunch defense of gun rights comes from those days. She has argued that if the guns her father and neighbors carried had been registered, they could have been confiscated by the authorities, leaving the black community defenseless.

This is yet another example of why private gun ownership is an absolute must in order to abate the spready of tyranny.

My long neglected blog

2004-11-18T09:53:00.000-08:00

Life can get real nutty very quickly. I find the deeper I dive into my faith, the more obsticles are placed in my path. Now I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, but I'm getting beat down pretty darn good. The worst or best part about all of it is that no matter what happens I will not give up my faith that God has a plan for me and if I just humble myself in prayer he will get me through it. I have no other choice than to be this way because the only other thing I could do is give up, and that will never be an option for me.

That's enough of that. I am still stewing on an apropriate response to the death of Arafat but it will take awhile.

Democrats shellshocked by Bush win over Kerry

2004-11-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

When I started to read this I almost thought it was a joke. But believe or not it's true.

Mental-health experts publicize 'post-election selection trauma'.

Some supporters of John Kerry shocked by President Bush's victory in last week's election continue to seek out psychological help, prompting at least one mental-health center to offer free counseling through the end of this year.

The Florida-based American Health Association has released symptoms of what it calls "post-election selection trauma," or PEST, which include: feelings of withdrawal, feelings of isolation, emotional anger and bitterness, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, nightmares, pervasive moodiness including endless sulking, and being excessively worried about the direction of the country.

"Post-election selection trauma affects many people and they have a right to be taken seriously and to seek counseling," psychotherapist Rob Gordon of the AHA told the Boca Raton News. "This is a real need and we're a charity. This is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats."

Some 30 people have reportedly contacted Gordon's group for counseling since Kerry conceded the race to Bush Nov. 3, and more than a dozen others in Palm Beach County have undergone intense hypnotherapy by trauma specialist Douglas Schooler.

"The problem is out there and it's not going to go away anytime soon," Schooler told the paper. "Conservatives are calling me to say these people are weak-kneed kooks, but they're not acknowledging that this is a normal psychological response to a severe and disillusioning situation. Any suggestion that this is not a serious problem arises from a political agenda. The Republicans don't want this talked about."

Other counselors, like Nancy Tabet of Delray Beach, Fla., are finding similar concerns among clients.

"It's interesting to me that people in Palm Beach County, because they vote for Kerry and thoroughly expected him to win, are in somewhat of a disbelief stage," she said. "We talk it out in our sessions and I help them realize there are people who share their viewpoint and who are there for them throughout this ordeal."

But there isn't unanimity among counselors about the existence of any actual trauma.

"I don't disagree with their diagnosis, but I wouldn't use the word trauma," Elizabeth Foxman, a cognitive therapist in Delray Beach told the News. "That's a loaded term. I would say there's more sadness and anxiety than trauma. My own patients have been stressed, but only one or two have mentioned the election as a topic in therapy."

Last weekend, a Georgia man fatally shot himself at Ground Zero in New York City. Friends of Andrew Veal, 25, stated they believed the suicide was a protest against Bush's re-election and the war in Iraq.

"When someone commits suicide in New York and Kerry's loss is even slightly connected, it's serious," Gordon said.

The issue is reminiscent of anxiety expressed earlier this year – especially among some Republicans and conservatives – when Bush announced he would seek legal status for millions of illegal aliens through what he called a temporary-worker program.

As WorldNetDaily reported, some Bush supporters felt it was a "slap in the face from the president," as they experienced nightmares, sweaty palms and knifing pains.

Radio talk-show giant Rush Limbaugh addressed the Kerry-counseling issue during his national broadcast Tuesday, noting that he would offer his own brand of conservative help to those who felt anxious.

"We lost in '92, we lost in '96. We didn't go out there and act like we had stress disorders and so forth," Limbaugh said. "But each time we have won, we won in '88, we won in 2000, and we won in 2004. That encompasses my 16 years. And each time after a victory, I have been magnanimous, and I myself have offered therapy and counseling to liberals who wanted to call and talk about it, and seriously so, and I have offered my compassion to those who seek it and I've also been open to accepting apologies from people on the left if that would make them feel better."

Click here to see the source of the story. WorldNetDaily: Democrats shellshocked
by Bush win over Kerry

Arafat the monster

2004-11-11T09:46:00.000-08:00

Arafat the monster
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist November 11, 2004

YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.

Arafat always inspired flights of nonsense from Western journalists, and his last two weeks were no exception.

Derek Brown wrote in The Guardian that Arafat's "undisputed courage as a guerrilla leader" was exceeded only "by his extraordinary courage" as a peace negotiator. But it is an odd kind of courage that expresses itself in shooting unarmed victims -- or in signing peace accords and then flagrantly violating their terms.

Another commentator, columnist Gwynne Dyer, asked, "So what did Arafat do right?" The answer: He drew worldwide attention to the Palestinian cause, "for the most part by successful acts of terror." In other words, butchering innocent human beings was "right," since it served an ulterior political motive. No doubt that thought brings daily comfort to all those who were forced to bury a child, parent, or spouse because of Arafat's "successful" terrorism.

Some journalists couldn't wait for Arafat's actual death to begin weeping for him. Take the BBC's Barbara Plett, who burst into tears on the day he was airlifted out of the West Bank. "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound," Plett reported from Ramallah, "I started to cry." Normal people don't weep for brutal murderers, but Plett made it clear that her empathy for Arafat -- whom she praised as "a symbol of Palestinian unity, steadfastness, and resistance" -- was heartfelt:

"I remember well when the Israelis re-conquered the West Bank more than two years ago, how they drove their tanks and bulldozers into Mr. Arafat's headquarters, trapping him in a few rooms, and throwing a military curtain around Ramallah. I remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under fire. They told me: `Our leader is sharing our pain, we are all under the same siege.' And so was I." Such is the state of journalism at the BBC, whose reporters do not seem to have any trouble reporting, dry-eyed, on the plight of Arafat's victims. (That is, when they mention them -- which Plett's teary bon voyage to Arafat did not.)

And what about those victims? Why were they scarcely remembered in this Arafat death watch?

How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy -- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed, would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11?

It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it.

Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims?

So let us recall them: Ilana Turgeman. Rachel Aputa. Yocheved Mazoz. Sarah Ben-Shim'on. Yona Sabag. Yafa Cohen. Shoshana Cohen. Michal Sitrok. Malka Amrosy. Aviva Saada. Yocheved Diyi. Yaakov Levi. Yaakov Kabla. Rina Cohen. Ilana Ne'eman. Sarah Madar. Tamar Dahan. Sarah Soper. Lili Morad. David Madar. Yehudit Madar. The 21 dead children of Ma'alot -- 21 of the thousands of who died at Arafat's command.

Click here to see the source of the article. Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Arafat the monster

Email from a Marine in Fallujah to his dad.

2004-11-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

Email from Dave - Nov 3, 04

Dear Dad -

As you have no doubt been watching, we have had our hands full around Fallujah. It would seem as if the final reckoning is coming. The city has been on a consistent down hill spiral since we were ordered out in April. It's siren call for extremists and criminals has only increased steadily and the instability and violence that radiates out of the town has expanded exponentially. If there is another city in the world that contains more terrorists, I would be surprised. From the last two years, I just don't see a way that we can succeed in Iraq without reducing this threat. The cost of continuing on without taking decisive action is too high to dwell on.

The enemy inside the town have come to fight and kill Americans. Nothing will sate their bloodlust and hatred other than to kill everyone of us or at least die trying. It is hard to fathom as a Westerner as rational thought would dictate that we will only be here for a relatively short blip in their history and while we are here, billions of dollars in investments will pour in and opportunity that is beyond comprehension will open up for anyone willing to work. This is not Kansas and this enemy does not think like that.

If we build a school or clinic, they destroy it. They would rather deny medical care or education for the children of the citizens who live nearby than to have any symbol of the West in general and America specifically among them. It is hard to comprehend. Frankly, we are done trying.

For eight months, we have been on our chain. The enemy has fooled itself misinterpreting our humanity and restraint for lack of will and courage. For eight months, we have watched Marines, Soldiers and Sailors maimed and killed by invisible cowards hiding behind some wall or in a canal as he detonates another IED. For eight months, we have been witness to suicidal sociopaths driving vehicles laden with explosives into crowds of Iraqis and into our own convoys.

Just last week, we lost another nine Marines killed and an equal number of wounded as the result of some ignorant extremists who was able to convince himself that killing himself and as many Americans as possible would send him to paradise where he could finally get his virgins.

Now, their own ignorance and arrogance will be their undoing. They believe that they can hold Fallujah. In fact, they have come from all over to be part of its glorious defense. I cannot describe the atmosphere that exists in the Regiment right now. Of course the men are nervous but I think they are more nervous that we will not be allowed to clean the rats nest out and instead will be forced to continue operating as is.

Its as if a window of opportunity has opened and everyone just wants to get on with it before it closes. The Marines know the enemy has massed and has temporarily decided to stay and fight. For the first time, the men feel as though we may be allowed to do what needs to be done. If the enemy wants to sit in his citadel and try to defend it against the Marine Corps and some very hard Soldiers... then the men want to execute before the enemy sobers up and flees.

It may come off as an exceptionally bellicose perspective but where the Marines live and operate is a war zone in the starkest reality. When the Marines leave the front gate on an operation or patrol, someone within direct line of sight of that gate is trying to kill them. All have lost friends and watched as the enemy hides within his sanctuary that has been allowed out of what one must assume is political necessity. The enemy has been given every advantage by our sense of morality and restraint and by a set of operational rules that we are constrained to operate under. The Marines feel like their time has come and we will finally be ordered to do what must be done and be given the latitude to do it. Even though the price will be high, there is not a man here that would chose status quo over paying the price.

Every day, the enemy takes more hostages, assassinates developing Iraqi leaders and savagely beats suspected collaborators. I will give you just one recent example that happened last week. One of our patrols was moving down a street when they saw what looked like a fight. The Marines closed with the scene. It was a family that had come to Iraq on religious pilgrimage that was taken hostage and was being taken into Fallujah. The muj stopped for some reason and the father began fighting. The Marines interdicted and captured two of the kidnappers. Two more ran and the Marines could not get a shot without fear of killing/wounding others.

Every day, insurgents from inside Fallujah drive out and wait for Iraqis that work on our bases. Once the Iraqis leave they are stopped. The lucky ones are savagely beaten. The unfortunate ones are killed. A family that had fled Fallujah in order to get away from the fighting recently tried to return. When they got to their home, they found it taken over by terrorists (very common). When the patriarch showed the muj his deed in order to prove that the house was his, they took the old man out into the street and beat him senseless in front of his family.

Summary executions are common. Think about that. Summary executions inside Fallujah happen with sobering frequency. We have been witness to the scene on a number of occasions. Three men are taken from the trunk of a car and are made to walk to a ditch where they are shot. Bodies are found in the Euphrates without heads washed downstream from Fallujah. To date we have been allowed to do nothing.

I have no idea the numbers of beheadings that have occurred in Fallujah since I have been here. I have no idea the number of hostages that have ended up in Fallujah since we have been here. I just don't know that Americans would be able to comprehend the number anyway. Unfortunately, the situation has only gotten worse. There is no hope for any type of reasoned solution with an enemy like this.

Once again, we are being asked by citizens who have fled the city to go in and take the city back. They are willing for us to literally rubble the place in order to kill the terrorists within. Don't get me wrong, there are still many inside the town that support the terrorists and we cannot expect to be thanked publicly if we do take the city. There is a sense of de ja vu with the refugees telling us where their houses are and asking us to bomb them because the muj have taken them over. We heard the same thing in April only to end up letting the people down. Some no doubt have paid with their lives. The "good" people who may ultimately buy into a peaceful and prosperous Iraq are again asking us to do what we know must be done.

The Marines understand and are eager to get on with it. The only lingering fear in them is that we will be ordered to stop again. I don't know if this is going to happen but if it happens soon, I will write you when its over,

Love,

Dave

Click on the link to see the source. The Green Side

Kerry Concedes!

2004-11-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

Rather than gloating let me say thank you to Senator Kerry for doing the stand up thing and conceding. It takes real strength and honor to know when your are defeated. I feel now the Senator can finish his long career on a good note. I will close this by saying congratulations to both cantidates.

Stick a fork in it

2004-11-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

It's done. My life can finally go back to normal.
W04

Kerry Campaign Party Turns to Tears and Bitterness

2004-11-03T08:29:00.000-08:00

As President George Bush edged closer to the 270 electoral votes necessary to secure re-election, supporters of Democratic nominee John Kerry openly wept and consoled each other at the Election Night celebration in Boston's Copley Square.

Some Kerry supporters called Bush's platform "all lies" and heckled a group of College Republicans who were passing through the crowd.

A distraught woman confronted Democratic U.S. Rep. Harold Ford in the lobby of the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel and screamed, "Can you tell me why everybody made a mistake?" Ford responded, "Let me talk to the candidate before I make a comment. It's been a long day."

Another woman standing near Ford began to openly weep at the prospect of a Kerry loss.

Former California Democratic governor Gray Davis spoke briefly with Ford and then essentially conceded the election to Bush and looked ahead to 2008.

"We owe it to the people that we represent to reassess and try and fix what went wrong and come back with a winning coalition and strategy four years from now and try to figure out a way to win the country back," Davis said.

When CNSNews.com asked why he had confidently predicted a Kerry victory just a few hours earlier, Davis responded, "I, like many people saw the exit polls, which saw Kerry ahead in every battleground state."

"We believed they were a precursor of a great evening," a somber Davis explained.

While Davis said he was "very proud of the campaign Kerry ran," he did criticize the party's efforts in southern states.

"Part of [winning the White House] is certainly not writing off the South. It's too big a part of America just to concede to the other party and expect to win," Davis said.

Davis praised Bush's re-election campaign.

"The president has worked hard for his re-election since the moment he got to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," Davis said. "He is surrounded by very smart people, they are very good practitioners of the art of politics," he added.

'It's all lies'

Meanwhile, outside Kerry's Copley Square rally, a contingent of College Republicans from Northeastern University marched through the sea of Kerry supporters and got heckled.

"You vote for Bush, you get what you deserve," shouted Kerry supporter Bob Bryant to the GOP contingent.

"Bush has put forward a platform that people tend to believe even though it's all lies. Bush is dishonest; he is not being honest with the American people," Bryant said.

Another man shouted to the Republicans "This is why the rest of the world calls us ignorant Americans. You obviously don't read the newspapers or you would not believe as you do."

A woman, unhappy the Republicans were there, screamed, "someone shut up those idiots.'

Brian Henchey, one of the College Republicans marching through the crowd told CNSNews.com that he had "never seen more sad and depressed faces in my life than what I have seen here in Copley Square tonight."

"I think our president is a strong man, he is a strong leader. He is what this country needs," said Megan, one of the GOP marchers.

Kerry supporters from Ireland weighed in on why they believe Bush will likely be re-elected.

"It clarifies the fact that American people aren't so smart. If I could, I would have voted for Kerry," said the woman.

Click on the link to see the source. Kerry Campaign Party Turns to Tears and Bitterness -- 11/03/2004

U.S. Team Took 250 Tons of Iraqi Munitions

2004-10-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON - A U.S. Army officer came forward Friday to say a team from his 3rd Infantry Division took about 250 tons of munitions and other material from the Al-Qaqaa arms-storage facility soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell in April 2003.

Explosives were part of the load taken by the team, but Major Austin Pearson was unable to say what percentage they accounted for.

The Pentagon believes the disclosure helps explain what happened to 377 tons of high explosives that the International Atomic Energy Agency said disappeared after the U.S.-led invasion.

Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita acknowledged the Defense Department did not have all the answers and could not yet account for all of the missing explosives, but stressed that the major's disclosure was a significant development in unraveling the mystery.

"We've described what we know, and as we know more we'll describe that," said DiRita.

Pearson, accompanied by DiRita, appeared at a Pentagon news conference and said his team's mission in April 2003 was to clear material from the Al-Qaqaa facility in order to secure it for U.S. forces. He admitted he was not an explosives expert.

The IAEA reported the disappearance of the explosives to the United Nations on Monday, suggesting they had fallen into the hands of looters after American troops had swept through the area.

U.S. military officials have retorted that they suspect the munitions were removed by Iraqis before Saddam was ousted from power on April 9, 2003.

The officer's story came the morning after new videotape surfaced supporting the contention that the explosives were still at the base following Saddam's fall.

Videotape shot by a Minnesota television crew traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq on April 18, 2003 shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels bearing IAEA seals.

The video was taken by a reporter and cameraman employed by KSTP, an ABC affiliate in St. Paul. It was broadcast nationally Thursday on the ABC national network.

"The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al-Qaqaa," David A. Kay, the former American official who directed the hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the site, told The New York Times. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an IAEA seal."

The Pentagon late Thursday released a satellite photograph of Al-Qaqaa taken on March 17, 2003, just before the war. It showed showing several bunkers, one with two tractor-trailers next to it.

Senior Defense officials said their photo shows that the Al-Qaqaa facility "was not hermetically sealed" after international weapons inspectors had paid their last visits to the facility earlier in the month.

Officials were analyzing the image and others for clues into when the nearly 380 tons of explosives were taken. The munitions included HMX and RDX, key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in bomb attacks.

The Pentagon insisted that the image shows the Iraqis were moving something at the site before the first U.S.-launched bombs fell.

Meanwhile, an IAEA report obtained by FOX News said the inspectors noted that despite the fact that the Al-Qaqaa bunkers were locked, ventilation shafts remained open and provided easy access to the explosives.

The IAEA can definitively say only that the documented ammunition was at the facility in January; in March, an agency spokesman conceded, inspectors only checked the locked bunker doors.

The question of what happened to the explosives has become a major issue in the closing days of the 2004 presidential campaign.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry says the missing explosives - powerful enough to demolish a building, bring down a jetliner or even trigger a nuclear weapon - are another example of the Bush administration's poor planning and incompetence in handling the war in Iraq.

President Bush says the explosives were possibly removed by Saddam's forces before the invasion.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld entered the debate Thursday, suggesting the 377 tons of explosives were taken away before U.S. forces arrived, saying any large effort to loot the material afterward would have been detected.

"We would have seen anything like that," he said in one of two radio interviews he gave at the Pentagon. "The idea it was suddenly looted and moved out, all of these tons of equipment, I think is at least debatable."

The bunker with the trucks parked next to it in the Pentagon's satellite image is not one known to have contained any of the missing explosives, and Defense spokesman DiRita said Thursday the image only shows that there was some Iraqi activity at the base on March 17.

DiRita acknowledged that the image says nothing about what happened to the explosives.

Rumsfeld, in one radio interview, also cast doubt on the suggestion by one of his subordinates that Russian soldiers assisted Iraqis in removing the munitions.

The Washington Times on Thursday quoted John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, who said he believed Russian special-forces personnel, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material from Al-Qaqaa.

Shaw said he believed the munitions were moved to Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 invasion.

Senior Defense officials urged caution over the Washington Times article because they could not verify its allegations as true.

"I have no information on that at all, and cannot validate that even slightly," Rumsfeld said.

The article prompted an angry denial from Moscow.

At the core of the issue is whether the explosives were moved before or after U.S. forces reached that part of the country in early April.

No one has been able to provide conclusive evidence either way, although Iraqi officials blamed the munitions' disappearance on poor U.S. security after Baghdad fell.

The Pentagon has said it is looking into the matter, and officials note that 400,000 tons of recovered Iraqi munitions have either been destroyed or are slated to be destroyed.

Click on the link to see the source of the report. FOXNews.com - U.S. Team Took 250 Tons of Iraqi Munitions

I WANT MY GI SON TO SERVE UNDER BUSH

2004-10-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

THE cliche goes: "Just business, nothing personal."
The hell it is.

John Kerry makes me weak in the ankles - and now it's personal, not business.
In the next few days, there will be a person reporting for duty in Iraq. His name is Army Capt. Peter J. Dunleavy.
Capt. Peter J. Dunleavy is not one ounce more special than the guys and gals he will go to Iraq with - no more special than the thousands of the brave boys and girls who have gone before him, and those who will certainly go after him.
He is, of course, special to his wife, Debbie, his mother, Gloria, his brother, Sean, Sean's girlfriend, Laura - and his friends in the sports bars who cheer for the Giants.
He is special to me, as are all the thousands of boys and girls who serve this country, because he looks at fear as a headache and duty as the ultimate.
And yet, John Kerry makes it look like those guys and gals are just victims - wrong war, wrong time, wrong place.
How dare he say that to our brave boys and girls? How dare he whisper it - let alone shout it to the whole world?
Now I am somewhere in Oklahoma to see off Capt. Pete, 37, my eldest boy. I ask him what he makes of Kerry's talk.
"Dad, we don't listen to politicians. We listen to our commanding officers," he says, growing bored already with the conversation.
I ask him where he is going in Iraq, what he will be doing, as all the worried parents of so many thousands of brave boys and girls surely do.
"Don't know. I'll just go where I am needed," he says matter-of-factly.
Sunday he left for another base, where he will be re-equipped, before taking off to Iraq in a few days.
On Saturday night, Pete and wife Debbie, a reservist in the Navy, had their last night out for a long time - at the Navy Ball.
It was there that Pete was given the official honor of re-enlisting his wife for another two years.
Capt. Pete is not worried about Kerry's outrageous statement - wrong war, wrong time, wrong place - because he's stronger and braver than that.
But I sure am worried.
In my book, Kerry is giving comfort and succor to the enemy. And don't forget that Tokyo Rose got jail time for it after World War II, and Jane Fonda, Kerry's soul mate, should have during Vietnam.
"Look, don't worry. I have been in the Reserves for more than 10 years - we are all well-trained, well-equipped," said Capt. Pete.
"To be honest, apart from having to leave Debbie back here, I'm psyched," he told me. "It's a privilege to serve and be given a new chapter of experience.
"I'll just knock this tour over and get on with it. No biggie."
I was in Baghdad last year, and it was very easy for me. Death was everywhere, but no one was shooting at me.
But that won't be the case for Pete and the men and women with him.
"Dude, don't worry about it," Capt. Pete says again.
And that's the attitude of the thousands below him and above him, the brave men and women doing the fighting.
But this father does worry - and worries even more about John Kerry.
When John Kerry says wrong war, wrong time, wrong place he undermines not my boy, but our boys. He embarrasses the United States abroad and he saps morale.
And that demands the severest reprimand. It is duplicity and cowardice and political opportunism of the worst kind. It's enough to make you cry.
I don't care what's on your watch, Sen. Kerry, this one's on my watch.
And then we come to the final "see ya later" at the airport. We hugged - and I couldn't talk.
Then I felt something strange - for the first time, after a lifetime of feeling like an adolescent, I felt old. Sending a kid off to war does that, I guess.
So Capt. Peter J. Dunleavy - and all the guys and gals that are going with you, and all that are there, and all that will come after you - go for the sake of our freedom. For the sake of your wife Debbie's freedom, your mother Gloria's freedom, your brother Sean's freedom, his girlfriend Laura's freedom - and the freedom of the boys in the sports bars cheering for the Giants.
Heck, for the sake of your dog's freedom. His name is Salty Dog. He loves you so much.
To you and all your comrades: Go with God.

Click the link to see the source. New York Post Online Edition: commentary

America's largest Jewish newspaper, endorses George W. Bush for President.

2004-10-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

It was George W. Bush's lot to have been elected president at a time when two defining developments were at work, fundamentally changing the world landscape. The European Union's burgeoning determination to fill the international political void created by the collapse of the Soviet Union was one. And the unprecedented challenges presented by an international terror crusade on the move - underscored eight months into Mr. Bush's presidency by 9/11 - was the other.

Both these developments required - and will continue to require - leadership not rooted in outdated geopolitical thinking; leadership cognizant of the reality that our ostensible friends do not necessarily share our interest in a strong United States and that our enemies do not risk as much as we do from confrontations gone seriously bad.

With this in mind, the choice Americans must make on November 2 should be an easy one. One can prattle about the significance of this or that difference between President Bush and Senator Kerry on the environment, Social Security, jobs, taxes and a whole slew of other domestic issues. But that avenue ineluctably ends up as a clash of partisan talking points about inherently insoluble problems. When it comes, however, to the war on terror - the overarching issue of our time - the choice of Mr. Bush over Mr. Kerry is a clear one from everything available in the public record. And for those with a special interest in Israel, the choice is even clearer.

Click on the link to read the entire endorsement. JewishPress.com

I love Bill Cosby

2004-10-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

Bill Cosby Gives Parenting Speech in Wis.

MILWAUKEE - Bill Cosby won cheers as he carried a serious message to the city's black community, urging parents to take up the responsibility of educating and raising their children.

"It is not all right for your 15-year-old daughter to have a child," the comedian said Wednesday night. "I'm 67 years old. I'm not talking to you any different from a grandfather who would say, 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'"

Cosby was warmly received by a crowd of about 2,400 people at North Division High School in Milwaukee's inner city.

He asked parents to talk with their children, spend time with them and encourage them to study hard and prevent teen pregnancy. He said parents shouldn't leave the responsibility of raising their children to television and CDs.

"These are your children," Cosby said. "You're supposed to raise them."

Cosby said he decided to come after speaking with Eugene Kane, columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and learning about the city's high rate of high school dropouts, its high teen pregnancy rate and its murder rate.

Cosby has become known for talking tough about problems of blacks and challenging parents to be more accountable for their children.

Kane had been critical of the comedian's comments before he attended a community rally Cosby held in Newark, N.J. Kane praised the event in a later column.

Click on the link to see the source. Yahoo! News - Bill Cosby Gives Parenting Speech in Wis.

School kids pick Bush, TV kids choose Kerry

2004-10-21T09:09:00.001-07:00

School kids pick Bush,
TV kids choose Kerry
Competing polls of U.S. children reveal strikingly different results

Two national polls of American children have markedly different results this year, one showing President Bush a clear winner, and the other predicting an even bigger win for Sen. John Kerry.

Interestingly, both unscientific surveys proclaim historical accuracy in presidential prognostications.

In the first poll, conducted by Scholastic, the global children's publishing and media company, more than half a million students in first through eighth grades from across the U.S. participated. They voted online and through mail-in paper ballots found in many of Scholastic's classroom magazines.

"George W. Bush won the kids' election poll with 52 percent of the vote," announced Scholastic student reporter David Rush.

Kerry collected 47 percent, with one percent going for other candidates. A few reportedly wrote in "mom" as their choice for president.

Scholastic has been conducting similar polls since 1940, with predictions only wrong in two close elections: 1948 when students chose Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman, and 1960, predicting Richard Nixon would beat John Kennedy.

Meanwhile, the second poll with a large sampling shows Kerry the victor, defeating Bush by a margin of 57 to 43 percent.

Nickelodeon TV's "Kids' Vote" had nearly 400,000 children participate in online voting.

The Viacom-owned network says children in its poll have correctly predicted the winner of the general elections for the last four U.S. presidential campaigns. Its first poll was in 1988. Four years ago, Bush was predicted the winner over Vice President Al Gore with 55 percent of the vote.

Former NBC newscaster Linda Ellerbee hosted a Nick News program last night announcing Kerry as this year's winner.

"Kids aren't dumb, they're just younger and shorter," she said, according to the Associated Press. "In fact, last election, a boy came up to me and said, 'We picked George Bush to win, and he didn't really win. Al Gore won the popular vote, so we were kinda wrong.' Quite an observation."

In addition to the national polls, local schools across America have been holding their own mini-elections, with students evoking strong stances for both candidates.

Fourth-graders in Kosciusko and Attala County, Miss., classrooms were recently asked their opinions.

Abortion was the key factor for Bush supporter Autumn Lewis, who told the Star-Herald, "I don't want a president who would kill children. That would end the world."

Dylan Pope told the paper he picked Kerry because "he'll make peace and let us do anything we want."

What a profound commentary on today's society. It does effectively point out the differences between conservatives and Liberals. Conservatives want to learn and lead, while Liberals are happy with hand outs and following the crowd.

Click on this link to see the source.WorldNetDaily: School kids pick Bush,
TV kids choose Kerry

George W. Bush vs John F. Kerry

2004-10-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

To start off this little blurb let me give you some background on my political upbringing. I was born in to a family with a strong pro union and Democrat foundation. My Grandfather was the boss for the Machinist Union and my father followed in his foot steps. I was brought up to believe that Democrats were for the small guy and that Republicans were out to get us. This being said as I got older, got married, and started a family I realized that all I had heard when I was young was not true. Fast forward to today I look at the candidates in real, simple, and honest terms. At the end of the day when Kerry loses the election I believe in his eyes life is over. This has been his life long dream and every move he has made was in preparation for this White House run. Contrast this to our President. His life was not lived with the Presidency as the goal. In fact if you look at his background it appears all his action were that of a man just living a real life. He's had alot of ups and a whole lot of downs. I Believe judging from everything I have read about the man, it makes no difference whether he leaves the White House this year or at the end of his 2nd term. He will be happy just to go back to his ranch in Crawford with his wife, and sip a tall glass of lemonade on a rocking chair on the front porch with thoughts of grandchildren playing in front of him in the yard. It's that calm, humble, and devout demeanor that wins my vote. GW truly is the epitome of a president who is looking out for the little guy.

Tour of the USS Ronald Reagan in pictures

2004-10-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Approaching The Entrance

The Tower

A friendly greeting

Flags

View from the deck

The Island

It's a long ship

The flag he loved

Captains chair

Modern ship and an old fashion wheel

Cool Door

Stair well mural 1

Captains Quarters

Captains Quarters his desk

Captains Quarters 4

Captains Quarters 5

Captains Quarters his desk 2

Officers mess 1

Officers mess 2

Officers mess 3

Officers mess 4

Officers mess 5

Ship emblem

Onboard museum 1

Onboard museum 2

Onboard museum 3

Onboard museum 4

Onboard museum 5

Onboard museum 6

Onboard museum 7

Onboard museum Final parting words

This was truly a moving experiance. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to one of our greatest Presidents.

Kerry the Clueless

2004-10-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

This is a great article from someone who is not a conservative. In fact Martin Peretz is a life long Liberal who was a mentor to Al Gore.

Kerry the Clueless

Like Carter and Clinton, he's a Democrat who offers Israel nothing but muddled ideas
By Martin Peretz
Martin Peretz is editor in chief of the New Republic.

October 17, 2004

Like many American Jews, I was brought up to believe that if I pulled the Republican lever on the election machine my right hand would wither and, as the Psalmist says, my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth.

According to the Bible, of course, these are the feared consequences of forgetting Jerusalem. Now although there are many reasons one might want to vote for John F. Kerry, remembering Jerusalem - remembering to stand up for the state of Israel - is not among them.

It is true that Kerry's campaign pronouncements have been unexceptionable from the pro-Zionist point of view. Yes, he flip-flopped on the miles of trenches and fences Israel is building to defend itself from the plague of terrorism, first attacking the structure as "another barrier to peace," then accepting it as "a legitimate act of self-defense."

He has also floundered concerning what can be expected of Yasser Arafat. Just as Arafat was launching the second intifada in 2000, Kerry asserted optimistically that we must "look to Chairman Arafat to exert much greater leadership." Three days later, he portentously declared the obvious on CBS' "Face the Nation," calling the Israel-Palestinian conflict "an extraordinarily complicated, incredibly deep-rooted problem." What made this problem so extraordinary and incredible? "Arafat has forces around him, underneath him, close by him that don't want peace, that are working against what he is doing," Kerry said by way of exoneration. (And, to sustain the moral equivalence of the parties in his head, he added, "The same is true of Prime Minister [Ehud] Barak" - which was nonsense, as there wasn't a single such person in Barak's circle.)

By now, to be sure, Kerry thinks that Arafat's "support" for terrorism has already rendered him unfit as a partner for peace. And his votes in the Senate (like all but a handful of senators) have been routinely friendly to Israel.

So why am I still exercised about John Kerry?

It's the ramifications of his foreign policy in general, especially his fixation on the United Nations as the arbiter of international legitimacy, proctor of that "global test."

Save for the U.S. veto in the Security Council, Israel loses every struggle at the U.N. against lopsided majorities. In the General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission, Muslim states trade their votes to protect aggressors and tyrannies from censure in exchange for libels against the Jewish state. The body's bloated and dishonest bureaucracies are no better, as evidenced most recently by the head of the U.N. Palestine refugee organization, who defended having Hamas militants on his staff.

I've searched to find one time when Kerry - even candidate Kerry - criticized a U.N. action or statement against Israel. I've come up empty. Nor has he defended Israel against the European Union's continuous hectoring. Another thing that bothers me about Kerry is the deus ex machina he has up his sleeve: the appointment of a presidential envoy. It's hard to count how many special emissaries have been dispatched from Washington to the Middle East to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's easy to see is that none of them has gotten to "yes."

In recent years, both former CIA Director George Tenet and former Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, once the chief of the U.S. Central Command, have served in this meaningless position. And who would Kerry designate? He first suggested the sanctimonious Jimmy Carter and James Baker, Bush 41's secretary of state.

Then he found out - why he didn't know this is another matter - that both Carter and Baker are deeply distrusted by the Israelis, and by American Jews. There was no mystery as to why. Carter (well, how does one say this?) is not exactly a friend to the Jewish nation and, besides, his favorite politician in the Middle East was the mass murderer Hafez Assad, the late president of Syria. A huge beneficiary of Saudi business, Baker was adept at pooh-poohing concerns about Israeli security. So we are left with Kerry's other putative designee, Bill Clinton, whose national security staff was so mesmerized by the mirage of a quickie Israel-Palestinian peace at the end of his term that, according to the Sept. 11 commission report, it couldn't be bothered take out Osama bin Laden after the attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole. Clinton succeeded in squeezing Israel into the extravagant Camp David and Taba formulas but failed to get Arafat to go along. At least for Israel, these proposals are now toast.

For his part, Kerry grabs at any showy idea to demonstrate his sense of urgency. As a response to militant Islam and to encourage moderate Muslims, the presidential aspirant proposed that "the great religious figures of the planet" - he mentioned the pope, the archbishop of Canterbury and the Dalai Lama - hold a summit.

To do exactly - what?

"To begin to help the world to see the ways in which Islam is not, in fact, a threat," Kerry said, "and to isolate those who are, and to give people the strength to be able to come together in a global effort to take away their financing, their freedom to move, their sanctuary and so forth."

This muddled foolishness reflects Kerry's sense of politics as desperate theater. Another simply showy idea he proposed (to Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press") was to insert U.S. troops between Israel and the territories, as part "of some kind of very neutral international effort that began to allow Israel itself to disengage and withdraw."

Now, if anything would put U.S. soldiers in harm's way it is such a move, exposing our men and women to fiercely competing gangs of suicide bombers and other killers.

Kerry asserted on "Meet the Press" that it is "Israel's presence [in the territories that] puts Israel in difficult circumstances and obviously creates an enormous handle for Osama bin Laden for all the radicals and extremists to hang on to." But this stands history on its head. It is not the occupation that caused the conflict. It is the very existence of Israel - even within the unbearably narrow 1949 cease-fire lines.

To project his Middle East bona fides, Kerry has bashed President Bush dozens of times for supposedly showing no interest in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, for breaking a continuum going back at least 30 years.

"Some cliches," wrote the dovish Israeli journalist Aluf Benn in the even more dovish Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "become permanent features in public until someone takes the trouble to check out their validity."

Which is what Benn did. And what did he find? The Bush administration "has been far more involved than any previous administrations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has courageously presented the two sides with practical objectives and demands."

Kerry seems to have nostalgia for the peacemaking ways of Clinton. But what Clinton actually bequeathed to George W., says Benn, was "an Israeli-Palestinian war and a total collapse of the hopes that flourished in the 1990s. The height of the peace process during the Clinton era, the Camp David summit in July 2000, was a classic example of inept diplomacy, an arrogant and rash move whose initiators failed to take into account the realpolitik, misunderstood Arafat and brought upon both Israelis and Palestinians the disaster of the intifada."

By contrast, Bush has committed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to a Palestinian state and to a withdrawal from some, though certainly not all, of the settlements. In return, the president has recognized that the most populous and strategically pivotal settlements would remain in Israeli hands and has also ruled out what would be suicide for Israel, the return of Palestinian refugees after 56 years. The Palestinians have not yet signed on to these particulars. But they are the future details of any peace.

Bush's empathy for the government in Israel is particularly remarkable, because empathy was altogether foreign to both Bush pere and his secretary of State. One can only imagine the horror of George H.W. and Baker (to whom the current president may actually owe his office) in seeing the inheritor become a true ally of Israel. Yet there it is. And with his understanding of - and sympathy for - the Israeli predicament, Bush has coaxed from Sharon an agreement to withdraw unilaterally from all the Gaza settlements and from four in the West Bank - something even left-wing governments, as Benn puts it, "were afraid to do."

Kerry, meanwhile, appears ready to formulaically follow the failed precepts of the past, complete with photo ops and multiple interlocutors. This is a road map to nowhere.

Click here to see the source of the article. Los Angeles Times: Kerry the Clueless

In the Face of Evil - In Theatres Oct. 1st

2004-10-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ronald Reagan, what can I say about this man that has not been said already. He is the epitome of what true leadership is. This film looks to be one of the most inspiring things to ever come out about this great man. Please visit the site and tell as many people about it as you can In the Face of Evil - In Theatres Oct. 1st. I leave you with an excerpt of one of my favorite speeches.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

Ronald Reagan October 27, 1964

Giuliani speaks out about Kerry's belief on what Terrorism is.

2004-10-11T16:17:00.001-07:00

Remarks by Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Conference Call Today

ARLINGTON, VA - Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered the following remarks in a Bush-Cheney '04 conference call today:

"For some time, and including when I spoke at the Republican Convention, I've wondered exactly what John Kerry's approach would be to terrorism and I've wondered whether he had the conviction, the determination, and the focus, and the correct worldview to conduct a successful war against terrorism. And his quotations in the New York Times yesterday make it clear that he lacks that kind of committed view of the world. In fact, his comments are kind of extraordinary, particularly since he thinks we used to before September 11 live in a relatively safe world. He says we have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance.

"I'm wondering exactly when Senator Kerry thought they were just a nuisance. Maybe when they attacked the USS Cole? Or when they attacked the World Trade Center in 1993? Or when they slaughtered the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972? Or killed Leon Klinghoffer by throwing him overboard? Or the innumerable number of terrorist acts that they committed in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, leading up to September 11?

"This is so different from the President's view and my own, which is in those days, when we were fooling ourselves about the danger of terrorism, we were actually in the greatest danger. When you don't confront correctly and view realistically the danger that you face, that's when you're at the greatest risk. When you at least realize the danger and you begin to confront it, then you begin to become safer. And for him to say that in the good old days - I'm assuming he means the 90s and the 80s and the 70s - they were just a nuisance, this really begins to explain a lot of his inconsistent positions on how to deal with it because he's not defining it correctly.

"As a former law enforcement person, he says 'I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it.' This is not illegal gambling; this isn't prostitution. Having been a former law enforcement person for a lot longer than John Kerry ever was, I don't understand his confusion. Even when he says 'organized crime to a level where it isn't not on the rise,' it was not the goal of the Justice Department to just reduce organized crime. It was the goal of the Justice Department to eliminate organized crime. Was there some acceptable level of organized crime: two families, instead of five, or they can control one union but not the other?

The idea that you can have an acceptable level of terrorism is frightening. How do you explain that to the people who are beheaded or the innocent people that are killed, that we're going to tolerate a certain acceptable [level] of terrorism, and that acceptable level will exist and then we'll stop thinking about it? This is an extraordinary statement. I think it is not a statement that in any way is ancillary. I think this is the core of John Kerry's thinking. This does create some consistency in his thinking.

"It is consistent with his views on Vietnam: that we should have left and abandoned Vietnam. It is consistent with his view of Nicaragua and the Sandinistas. It is consistent with his view of opposing Ronald Reagan at every step of the way in the arms buildup that was necessary to destroy communism. It is consistent with his view of not supporting the Persian Gulf War, which was another extraordinary step. Whatever John Kerry's global test is, the Persian Gulf War certainly would pass anyone's global test. If it were up to John Kerry, Saddam Hussein would not only still be in power, but he’d still be controlling Kuwait.

"Finally, what he did after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, where I guess at that point terrorism was still just a nuisance. He must have thought that because that's why he proposed seriously reducing our intelligence budget, when you would think someone who was really sensitive to the problem of terrorism would have done just the opposite. I think that rather than being some aberrational comment, it is the core of the John Kerry philosophy: that terrorism is no different than domestic law enforcement problems, and that the best we're ever going to be able to do is reduce it, so why not follow the more European approach of compromising with it the way Europeans did in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s?

"This is so totally different than what I think was the major advance that President Bush made significant advance that he made in the Bush Doctrine on September 20, 2001, when he said we're going to face up to terrorism and we're going to do everything we can to defeat it, completely. There's no reason why we have to tolerate global terrorism, just like there's no reason to tolerate organized crime.

"So I think this is a seminal issue, this is one that explains or ties together a lot of things that we've talked about. Even this notion that the Kerry campaign was so upset that the Vice President and others were saying that he doesn't understand the threat of terrorism; that he thinks it's just a law enforcement action. It turns out the Vice President was right. He does and maybe this is a difference, maybe this is an honest difference that we really should debate straight out. He thinks that the threat is not as great as at least the President does, and I do, and the Vice President does."

Kerry Stumps for Black Voters at Churches

2004-10-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. Somebody tell me how much crap would be said if George W. Bush went into a church campaigning for votes. The double standards are so blatant I don't know why we on the right just don't tell the Liberals to shove it(forgive my language, It's monday and I didn't get alot of sleep).

Sunday, Oct. 10, 2004
MIAMI - With just three Sundays left before Election Day, Sen. John Kerry is asking for all the help he can get from black voters and the Almighty.

The Democratic presidential nominee attended two church services Sunday, instead of his usual one, worshipping first with Haitian Catholics and then with black Baptists, where the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton tied his election to the civil rights struggle.
"We have an unfinished march in this nation," Kerry said at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, as many congregants waved fans handed out by the campaign with his slogan, "Hope is on the way."

"Never again will a million African Americans be denied the right to exercise their vote in the United States of America," Kerry promised, referring to the disputed Florida recount in the 2000 presidential race. As he often does before black audiences, Kerry said he has a legal team that will aggressively respond to any allegations of disenfranchisement.

Black turnout is key to Kerry's plan for victory in Florida and elsewhere - less than 10 percent of black voters nationally supported George W. Bush in 2000. But Kerry's campaign says there have been efforts to turn religious blacks against him based on his support for abortion rights and civil unions for same-sex couples.

Jackson told worshippers their political concerns are issues that touch their everyday lives, not gay marriage.

"I see disturbing signs today that some of our churches have been confused by wolves in sheep's' clothing," Jackson said. "How did someone else put their agenda in the front of the line?"

"November 2, the power is in your hands, hands that once picked cotton," Jackson said.

Added Sharpton: "Everything we have fought for, marched for, gone to jail for - some died for - could be reversed if the wrong people are put on the Supreme Court."

Speakers avoided criticizing President Bush by name, since they were in church, but he was indirectly vilified.

Former Rep. Carrie Meek said Kerry is "fighting against liars and demons. ... He challenges the man who walks with a jaunty step." She rocked her hips in an imitation of Bush's swagger as the congregation cheered and Kerry laughed from his high-backed seat behind the pulpit.

Bush, who spent the day at his Texas ranch, and Vice President Dick Cheney did not campaign Sunday, while Kerry running mate John Edwards appeared on the five Sunday talk shows before heading to the Midwest.

In Washington, Republican Party chief Ed Gillespie criticized Kerry for saying in an interview in The New York Times Magazine that, "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." He appeared to equate terrorism to prostitution and illegal gambling, saying they can be reduced but not ended.

"This demonstrates a disconcerting pre-September 11 mind-set that will not make our country safer," Gillespie said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "And that is what we see relative to winning the war on terror and relative to Iraq."

Hours later, Bush's re-election campaign announced a new television ad that plays off of Kerry's interview comment. "Terrorism ... a nuisance? How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat?" the ad says. The campaign said the ad would run on national cable television networks and the campaign's Web site.

In Florida, Kerry, who is Catholic, also attended Mass at St. James Catholic Church. Aides said it was for his own personal worship rather than for any campaigning.

Or, as Kerry told a teenager who asked him Saturday night if he can get rid of standardized tests, "You do a lot more praying during exams than any other time of the year."

Kerry was arriving in New Mexico late Sunday to prepare for the third and final presidential debate on Wednesday in Tempe, Ariz.

Click here to see the source. Kerry Stumps for Black Voters at Churches

Kerry's Undeclared War

2004-10-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

I normally don't like to post articles this large in there entirety but this is so damning to John Kerry, plus it's from the New York Time(which is not the most right leaning paper).

October 10, 2004
Kerry's Undeclared War
By MATT BAI

s New York and Washington were under attack on Sept. 11, 2001, a film crew happened to come upon John Kerry leaving the Capitol. The brief moment of footage, included in a BBC documentary called ''Clear the Skies,'' tells us something, perhaps, about Kerry in a crisis. The camera captures Congressional aides and visitors, clearly distraught and holding onto one another, streaming down the back steps of the Capitol building in near panic, following the bellowed instructions of anxious police. Off to one side of the screen, there is Kerry, alone, his long legs carrying him calmly down the steps, his neck craning toward the sky, as if he were watching a gathering rainstorm. His face and demeanor appear unworried. Kerry could be a man lost in his thoughts who just happens to have wandered onto the set of a disaster film.

''I remember looking up at the sky as I walked down the steps,'' Kerry told me recently, when I asked him about the film clip. He said that he and other members of the Senate's Democratic leadership had just watched on television as the second plane hit the World Trade Center, and shortly after that they heard the sonic boom of an explosion and saw, through a large window, the black smoke rise from the Pentagon. ''We'd had some warning that there was some airplane in the sky. And I remember seeing a great big plane -- I think it was a 747 or something -- up there, but it wasn't moving in a way that, you know, I was particularly concerned. I remember feeling a rage, a huge anger, and I remember turning to somebody and saying, 'This is war.' I said, 'This is an act of war.'''

After leaving the Capitol on that terrible day, Kerry walked across the street to his office in the Russell Senate building, where he made sure that his staff had been evacuated and was safe. Reluctant to leave Capitol Hill, he watched TV coverage in his office and saw the second tower fall. He called his older daughter, Alexandra, who was living in New York, and his wife, Teresa, who was in Washington. Those who saw Kerry that morning recall mainly that he was furious, an emotion, those close to him say, that comes easily to him in times of trial. He thought it was a mistake to shut down the Capitol, to show terrorists that they had the power to send the United States government into hiding.

''You know, my instinct was, Where's my gun?'' Kerry told me. ''How do you fight back? I wanted to do something.'' That evening, sitting at home, he called an aide and said he wanted to go to New York that very night to help the rescuers; he was ultimately convinced that such a trip was logistically impossible. In the days ahead, Kerry would make two trips to ground zero to see what remained of the carnage.

With the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the geopolitical currents that Washington had spent half a century mastering shifted all at once. It isn't clear how long it took Kerry -- a senator for nearly 20 years and, in September 2001, an undeclared candidate for the presidency -- to understand the political magnitude of that change. George W. Bush and his advisers got it almost instantly. Few men get to be president, and far fewer get to be president at a critical, transformative moment; Bush, seizing the opportunity, recast himself as the accidental protagonist of a new and dramatic national narrative. Less than a year removed from a disputed election, he set about elbowing his way into the small pantheon of modern presidents -- F.D.R. after Pearl Harbor, Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- who led the nation in profound moments of peril.

Before the smoke had even dissipated over Manhattan, Bush presented the country with an ambitious, overarching construct for a new era in foreign relations. ''The war on terror,'' as he put it, was this generation's test of military and ideological resolve, different from the ones that came before with regard to tactics, perhaps, but not in the magnitude of the challenges or the ambition of the enemy. Bush explained that Al Qaeda and its allies and imitators would constitute a new kind of menace in the years ahead, stealthier and less predictable than past enemies. And yet, in their opposition to American principles and the threat they posed to the nation, he suggested, the Islamic terrorists were the equivalent of Hitler and Stalin, and defeating them would require the same steel and the same conviction that guided America in the last century's campaigns.

While Bush and much of the country seemed remade by the historic events of 9/11, Democrats in Washington were slow to understand that the attacks had to change them in some way too. What adjustments they made were, at first, defensive. Spooked by Bush's surging popularity and the nation's suddenly ascendant mood of patriotism, Democrats stifled their instinctive concerns over civil liberties; and whatever their previous misgivings about intervention, many Congressional Democrats, a year after the terrorist attacks, voted to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

What few Democrats did at the time was think creatively about the new world of foreign policy. The candidates who began their runs for the presidency last year, from Dennis Kucinich and his peace platform on the left to Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt on the other side of the spectrum, attacked the president's foreign policy from different directions, but if any new ideas emerged during those months, they were soon drowned out by the booming anti-war voice of Howard Dean. When Kerry emerged as the most palatable alternative, he at first ran mostly on the viability of his personal story, focusing more on his combat experience in Vietnam than on any plan to fight Al Qaeda or remake Iraq. Only since Labor Day has Kerry begun to sharpen his distinctions with Bush on national security and foreign policy. In a series of combative speeches and statements, and in a crisp performance at the first head-to-head debate, Kerry has argued that Bush's war in Iraq is a disaster, that troops should be brought home before the end of the next presidential term and that the Iraq war is a ''profound diversion'' from the war on terror and the real showdown with Al Qaeda.

What Kerry still has not done is to articulate clearly a larger foreign-policy vision, his own overarching alternative to Bush's global war on terror. The difference between the two men was clear during the foreign-policy debate in Florida 10 days ago. Kerry seemed dominant for much of the exchange, making clear arguments on a range of specific challenges -- the war in Iraq, negotiations with North Korea, relations with Russia. But while Kerry bore in on ground-level details, Bush, in defending his policies, seemed, characteristically, to be looking at the world from a much higher altitude, repeating in his brief and sometimes agitated statements a single unifying worldview: America is the world's great force for freedom, unsparing in its use of pre-emptive might and unstinting in its determination to stamp out tyranny and terrorism. Kerry seemed to offer no grand thematic equivalent.

Inside liberal think-tanks, there are Democratic foreign-policy experts who are challenging some of Bush's most basic assumptions about the post-9/11 world -- including, most provocatively, the very idea that we are, in fact, in a war. But Kerry has tended to steer clear of this conversation, preferring to attack Bush for the way he is fighting terrorism rather than for the way in which he perceives and frames the threat itself.

The argument going on in Washington has its roots in the dark years of the cold war. Just about everyone agrees that many factors contributed to America's triumph over world communism -- but people differ on which of those factors were most important. The neo-conservatives who shaped Reagan's anti-Soviet policy and now shape Bush's war on terror have long held that the ''twilight struggle'' with the Soviet empire was won primarily as a result of U.S. military intervention in several hemispheres and of Reagan's massive arms buildup, without which democracy and free markets could not have taken hold. Many liberals, on the other hand, have never been comfortable with that premise; while they acknowledge that American military power played a role, they contend that the long ideological struggle with communism ended chiefly because the stifling economic and social tenets of Marxism were unsustainable, and because a new leader emerged -- Mikhail Gorbachev -- who understood that. They see Islamic fanaticism, similarly, as a repressive ideology, born of complex societal conditions, that won't be defeated by any predominately military solution.

In the liberal view, the enemy this time -- an entirely new kind of ''non-state actor'' known as Al Qaeda -- more closely resembles an especially murderous drug cartel than it does the vaunted Red Army. Instead of military might, liberal thinkers believe, the moment calls for a combination of expansive diplomacy abroad and interdiction at home, an effort more akin to the war on drugs than to any conventional war of the last century.

Even Democrats who stress that combating terrorism should include a strong military option argue that the ''war on terror'' is a flawed construct. ''We're not in a war on terror, in the literal sense,'' says Richard Holbrooke, the Clinton-era diplomat who could well become Kerry's secretary of state. ''The war on terror is like saying 'the war on poverty.' It's just a metaphor. What we're really talking about is winning the ideological struggle so that people stop turning themselves into suicide bombers.''

These competing philosophies, neo-conservative and liberal, aren't mutually exclusive, of course. Neo-cons will agree that military operations are just one facet, albeit the main one, of their response to terrorism. And liberals are almost unanimous in their support for military force when the nation or its allies face an imminent and preventable threat; not only did the vast majority of liberal policy makers support the invasion of Afghanistan, but many also thought it should have been pursued more aggressively. Still, the philosophical difference between the two camps, applied to a conflict that may well last a generation, is both deep and distinct. Fundamentally, Bush sees the war on terror as a military campaign, not simply to protect American lives but also to preserve and spread American values around the world; his liberal critics see it more as an ideological campaign, one that will turn back a tide of resentment toward Americans and thus limit the peril they face at home.

Perhaps the most pressing question of the presidential campaign is where John Kerry stands in this debate. The man who would be the first Vietnam veteran to occupy the Oval Office has doggedly tried to merge both worldviews, repeatedly vowing to fight both a more fierce and a more restrained, multifaceted war on terror. Aides say this is evidence of his capacity to envision complex solutions for a complex world; voters, through the summer and early fall, seemed less impressed. In a typical poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News just before the first presidential debate, only 37 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement that Kerry would make the country safer. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in mid-September found that half the respondents thought Bush would make the right decisions to protect the nation from terrorism, compared with only 26 percent who said the same thing about Kerry.

More surprising than the poll numbers, though, is the sense of frustration, expressed not just by voters but by some in Kerry's own party, that even at this late hour, Kerry's long-term strategy for defeating the terrorists remains so ethereal. ''You will lose, and we will win,'' Kerry told America's enemies in the most memorable line of his convention speech in late July. ''The future doesn't belong to fear. It belongs to freedom.'' But how will we win? How do you root out and destroy Islamic radicals while at the same time capturing the ''hearts and minds'' of Islamic students? When John Kerry said, on Sept. 11, 2001, ''This is war,'' what precisely did he mean?

n an evening in August, just after a campaign swing through the Southwest, Kerry and I met, for the second of three conversations about terrorism and national security, in a hotel room overlooking the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier. A row of Evian water bottles had been thoughtfully placed on a nearby table. Kerry frowned.

''Can we get any of my water?'' he asked Stephanie Cutter, his communications director, who dutifully scurried from the room. I asked Kerry, out of sheer curiosity, what he didn't like about Evian.

''I hate that stuff,'' Kerry explained to me. ''They pack it full of minerals.''

''What kind of water do you drink?'' I asked, trying to make conversation.

''Plain old American water,'' he said.

''You mean tap water?''

''No,'' Kerry replied deliberately. He seemed now to sense some kind of trap. I was left to imagine what was going through his head. If I admit that I drink bottled water, then he might say I'm out of touch with ordinary voters. But doesn't demanding my own brand of water seem even more aristocratic? Then again, Evian is French -- important to stay away from anything even remotely French.

''There are all kinds of waters,'' he said finally. Pause. ''Saratoga Spring.'' This seemed to have exhausted his list. ''Sometimes I drink tap water,'' he added.

After months of having his every word scrutinized by reporters and mocked by Republicans, Kerry appeared to sense danger in the most mundane of places. Interviewing him reminded me at times of what I'd read in ''Tour of Duty,'' the historian Douglas Brinkley's flattering account of Kerry's service in Vietnam. The Swift boat crews on the Mekong Delta and the Ca Mau Peninsula did not aspire to be heroic, although they were. Kerry and the young sailors were given patrol missions that seemed unnecessarily dangerous; their job was essentially to prove the point that Americans could traverse the windy rivers of the delta, rife with Vietcong, and lure the enemy out into the open. They traveled slowly and kept watch in all directions, and if their leader got them from point A to point B and back again without serious casualties, he had done his job.

Kerry seems to find presidential politics in the era of Karl Rove as treacherous as riverine warfare, and he has run for the presidency in much the same way. From the beginning, Kerry's advisers said that the election would be principally a referendum on Bush, whose approval ratings, reflecting public anxiety over Iraq and a sluggish economy, were consistently low for a president seeking re-election. All Kerry had to do to win, the thinking went, was to meet a basic threshold of acceptability with voters and avoid doing or saying anything that might be fatally stupid. The riverbanks were lined with hostile Republicans and reporters, lying in wait for him, and Kerry's goal as he sailed upriver was simple: Stay down. Exercise caution. Get to November in one piece.

Which is exactly what it's like to interview Kerry as he runs for the presidency; he acts as if you've been sent to destroy him, and he can't quite figure out why in the world he should be sitting across from you. When I met him for our first conversation, in his cabin aboard the 757 that shuttles his campaign around the country, Kerry didn't extend his hand or even look up to greet me when I entered, and he grew so quickly and obviously exasperated with my questions about his thoughts and votes on Iraq that he cut the interview short. (Embarrassed aides later told me he had been abruptly roused from a nap.) He was far more gracious in our subsequent conversations about terrorism and foreign policy, but he still spent a lot of the time repeating phrases from his stump speech. (''You will lose, we will win,'' and so on.) What some politicians -- Bill Clinton comes to mind -- might have considered an opportunity to persuade and impress voters, Kerry seemed to regard only as an invitation to do himself harm.

Kerry's guardedness has contributed to the impression that he does not think clearly or boldly about foreign policy. In his short but fascinating book titled ''Surprise, Security and the American Experience,'' the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis suggests that Bush's framework for fighting terrorism has its roots in the lofty, idealistic tradition of John Quincy Adams and Woodrow Wilson. (The book was so popular in the White House that Gaddis was invited over for a discussion.) ''What Bush is proposing is quite long-term, quite radical and quite Wilsonian,'' Gaddis told me when we spoke; when I asked him about Kerry, he said: ''I don't know where Kerry is on this. I don't have the slightest clue.''

Kerry's adversaries have found it easy to ridicule his views on foreign policy, suggesting that his idea of counterterrorism is simply to go around arresting all the terrorists. This is what Dick Cheney was getting at when he said last month that there was a danger, should Kerry be elected, that ''we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war.'' These barbs have some resonance, largely because Kerry is so obviously defensive about them; talking to him, you sometimes get the sense that he would gladly throw on a pair of night-vision goggles and abduct a member of his own staff if he thought it would prove he could be as tough on terror as his opponent. (When I asked one Kerry adviser what it was that voters needed to know about Kerry and terrorism, he replied without hesitation. ''That he's strong and tough,'' he said. ''In the case of John Kerry, unlike Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, he's looked people in the face and shot them dead.'')

It's perhaps not surprising, then, that Kerry hasn't been eager to challenge Bush's grand notion of a war on terror; such a distinction might sound weak, equivocal or, worse yet, nuanced. It's equally unsurprising that, in the recent Times poll, 57 percent of the respondents said Kerry hadn't made his plans for the country clear, and 63 percent believed he said what he thought people wanted to hear, rather than what he actually thought. This reflected savage Republican attacks on Kerry's character, to be sure, but it probably also had something to do with the fact that he hadn't made his plans clear and seemed to be saying what he thought people wanted to hear.

When I asked Kerry's campaign advisers about these poll numbers, what I heard from some of them in response was that Kerry's theories on global affairs were just too complex for the electorate and would have been ignored -- or, worse yet, mangled -- by the press. ''Yes, he should have laid out this issue and many others in greater detail and with more intellectual creativity, there's no question,'' one adviser told me. ''But it would have had no effect.''

This is, of course, a common Democratic refrain: Republicans sound more coherent because they see the world in such a rudimentary way, while Democrats, 10 steps ahead of the rest of the country, wrestle with profound policy issues that don't lend themselves to slogans. By this reasoning, any proposal that can be explained concisely to voters is, by definition, ineffective and lacking in gravitas. Other Kerry aides blame the candidate and his coterie of message makers, most of whom are legendary for their attack ads but less adept at thinking about broad policy arguments. ''If you talk about this the right way, then the American people, or most of them, will get it,'' one of Kerry's informal advisers told me. ''But you've got to have guts.''

This is the Republican line on Kerry -- that he lacks guts. Kerry's often wobbly attempt to be both like and unlike Bush in his approach to terrorism and the war in Iraq enabled the Bush team, by the time Kerry and I spoke in August, to portray him, devastatingly, as a ''flip-flopper'' who careens from one position to another. In our conversation, Kerry seemed unusually sensitive to these allegations, to the point where he seemed unwilling to admit to having evolved or grown in the way that politicians -- or human beings, for that matter -- generally do. When I asked Kerry how Sept. 11 had changed him, either personally or politically, he seemed to freeze for a moment.

''It accelerated -- '' He paused. ''I mean, it didn't change me much at all. It just sort of accelerated, confirmed in me, the urgency of doing the things I thought we needed to be doing. I mean, to me, it wasn't as transformational as it was a kind of anger, a frustration and an urgency that we weren't doing the kinds of things necessary to prevent it and to deal with it.''

Kerry did allow that he, like other Americans, felt less safe after 9/11. ''Look, until a few months ago,'' he said, referring to the time before he was enveloped in a Secret Service escort and whisked around on charter planes, ''I was flying like everybody else, you know, going through things. Absolutely, I've looked at people very carefully on an airplane. I'd look at shoes. I'd check people who I thought might be a little squirrelly. Going into crowded events, I feel very much on the alert.''

Bush attacked Kerry earlier in the campaign over this question of whether the war on terror was really a war. (''My opponent indicated that he's not comfortable using the word 'war' to describe the struggle we're in,'' Bush said, although whether Kerry had actually said that is debatable.) Now that I'd heard Holbrooke and others say flat out that we weren't in an actual war, I wanted to hear what Kerry thought. Is this a real war, or a metaphorical one? I asked him. Is ''war'' the right word to use?

''There's a danger in it,'' Kerry said, nodding. ''But it's real,'' he went on, meaning the war itself. ''You know, when your buildings are bombed and 3,000 people get killed, and airplanes are hijacked, and a nation is terrorized the way we were, and people continue to plot to do you injury, that's an act of war, and it's serious business. But it's a different kind of war. You have to understand that this is not the sands of Iwo Jima. This is a completely new, different kind of war from any we've fought previously.''

Kerry told me he would stop terrorists by going after them ruthlessly with the military, and he faulted Bush, as he often does, for choosing to use Afghan militias, instead of American troops, to pursue Osama bin Laden into the mountains of Tora Bora, where he disappeared. ''I'm certainly, you know, not going to take second seat to anybody, to nobody, in my willingness to seek justice and set America on a course -- to make America safe,'' Kerry told me. ''And that requires destroying terrorists. And I'm committed to doing that. But I think I have a better way of doing it. I can do it more effectively.''

This was a word that Kerry came back to repeatedly in our discussions; he told me he would wage a more ''effective'' war on terror no less than 18 times in two hours of conversations. The question, of course, was how.

''I think we can do a better job,'' Kerry said, ''of cutting off financing, of exposing groups, of working cooperatively across the globe, of improving our intelligence capabilities nationally and internationally, of training our military and deploying them differently, of specializing in special forces and special ops, of working with allies, and most importantly -- and I mean most importantly -- of restoring America's reputation as a country that listens, is sensitive, brings people to our side, is the seeker of peace, not war, and that uses our high moral ground and high-level values to augment us in the war on terror, not to diminish us.''

This last point was what Kerry seemed to be getting at with his mantra of ''effectiveness,'' and it was in fact the main thrust of his campaign pitch about terrorism. By infuriating allies and diminishing the country's international esteem, Kerry argued, Bush had made it impossible for America to achieve its goals abroad. By the simple act of changing presidents, the country would greatly increase its chances of success in the global war on terror. Both candidates, in fact, were suggesting that the main difference between them was one of leadership style and not policy; just as Bush had taken to arguing that Kerry was too inconstant to lead a nation at war, Kerry's critique centered on the idea that Bush had proved himself too stubborn and arrogant to represent America to the rest of the world.

But when you listen carefully to what Bush and Kerry say, it becomes clear that the differences between them are more profound than the matter of who can be more effective in achieving the same ends. Bush casts the war on terror as a vast struggle that is likely to go on indefinitely, or at least as long as radical Islam commands fealty in regions of the world. In a rare moment of either candor or carelessness, or perhaps both, Bush told Matt Lauer on the ''Today'' show in August that he didn't think the United States could actually triumph in the war on terror in the foreseeable future. ''I don't think you can win it,'' he said -- a statement that he and his aides tried to disown but that had the ring of sincerity to it. He and other members of his administration have said that Americans should expect to be attacked again, and that the constant shadow of danger that hangs over major cities like New York and Washington is the cost of freedom. In his rhetoric, Bush suggests that terrorism for this generation of Americans is and should be an overwhelming and frightening reality.

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

This analogy struck me as remarkable, if only because it seemed to throw down a big orange marker between Kerry's philosophy and the president's. Kerry, a former prosecutor, was suggesting that the war, if one could call it that, was, if not winnable, then at least controllable. If mobsters could be chased into the back rooms of seedy clubs, then so, too, could terrorists be sent scurrying for their lives into remote caves where they wouldn't harm us. Bush had continually cast himself as the optimist in the race, asserting that he alone saw the liberating potential of American might, and yet his dark vision of unending war suddenly seemed far less hopeful than Kerry's notion that all of this horror -- planes flying into buildings, anxiety about suicide bombers and chemicals in the subway -- could somehow be made to recede until it was barely in our thoughts.

Kerry came to his worldview over the course of a Senate career that has been, by any legislative standard, a quiet affair. Beginning in the late 80's, Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations investigated and exposed connections between Latin American drug dealers and BCCI, the international bank that was helping to launder drug money. That led to more investigations of arms dealers, money laundering and terrorist financing.

Kerry turned his work on the committee into a book on global crime, titled ''The New War,'' published in 1997. He readily admitted to me that the book ''wasn't exclusively on Al Qaeda''; in fact, it barely mentioned the rise of Islamic extremism. But when I spoke to Kerry in August, he said that many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror.

''Of all the records in the Senate, if you don't mind my saying, I think I was ahead of the curve on this entire dark side of globalization,'' he said. ''I think that the Senate committee report on contras, narcotics and drugs, et cetera, is a seminal report. People have based research papers on it. People have based documents on it, movies on it. I think it was a significant piece of work.''

More senior members of the foreign-relations committee, like Joe Biden and Richard Lugar, were far more visible and vocal on the emerging threat of Islamic terrorism. But through his BCCI investigation, Kerry did discover that a wide array of international criminals -- Latin American drug lords, Palestinian terrorists, arms dealers -- had one thing in common: they were able to move money around through the same illicit channels. And he worked hard, and with little credit, to shut those channels down.

In 1988, Kerry successfully proposed an amendment that forced the Treasury Department to negotiate so-called Kerry Agreements with foreign countries. Under these agreements, foreign governments had to promise to keep a close watch on their banks for potential money laundering or they risked losing their access to U.S. markets. Other measures Kerry tried to pass throughout the 90's, virtually all of them blocked by Republican senators on the banking committee, would end up, in the wake of 9/11, in the USA Patriot Act; among other things, these measures subject banks to fines or loss of license if they don't take steps to verify the identities of their customers and to avoid being used for money laundering.

Through his immersion in the global underground, Kerry made connections among disparate criminal and terrorist groups that few other senators interested in foreign policy were making in the 90's. Richard A. Clarke, who coordinated security and counterterrorism policy for George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, credits Kerry with having seen beyond the national-security tableau on which most of his colleagues were focused. ''He was getting it at the same time that people like Tony Lake were getting it, in the '93 -'94 time frame,'' Clarke says, referring to Anthony Lake, Clinton's national security adviser. ''And the 'it' here was that there was a new nonstate-actor threat, and that nonstate-actor threat was a blended threat that didn't fit neatly into the box of organized criminal, or neatly into the box of terrorism. What you found were groups that were all of the above.''

In other words, Kerry was among the first policy makers in Washington to begin mapping out a strategy to combat an entirely new kind of enemy. Americans were conditioned, by two world wars and a long standoff with a rival superpower, to see foreign policy as a mix of cooperation and tension between civilized states. Kerry came to believe, however, that Americans were in greater danger from the more shadowy groups he had been investigating -- nonstate actors, armed with cellphones and laptops -- who might detonate suitcase bombs or release lethal chemicals into the subway just to make a point. They lived in remote regions and exploited weak governments. Their goal wasn't to govern states but to destabilize them.

The challenge of beating back these nonstate actors -- not just Islamic terrorists but all kinds of rogue forces -- is what Kerry meant by ''the dark side of globalization.'' He came closest to articulating this as an actual foreign-policy vision in a speech he gave at U.C.L.A. last February. ''The war on terror is not a clash of civilizations,'' he said then. ''It is a clash of civilization against chaos, of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future.''

This stands in significant contrast to the Bush doctrine, which holds that the war on terror, if not exactly a clash of civilizations, is nonetheless a struggle between those states that would promote terrorism and those that would exterminate it. Bush, like Kerry, accepts the premise that America is endangered mainly by a new kind of adversary that claims no state or political entity as its own. But he does not accept the idea that those adversaries can ultimately survive and operate independently of states; in fact, he asserts that terrorist groups are inevitably the subsidiaries of irresponsible regimes. ''We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients,'' the National Security Strategy said, in a typical passage, ''before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends.''

By singling out three states in particular- Iraq, North Korea and Iran -- as an ''axis of evil,'' and by invading Iraq on the premise that it did (or at least might) sponsor terrorism, Bush cemented the idea that his war on terror is a war against those states that, in the president's words, are not with us but against us. Many of Bush's advisers spent their careers steeped in cold-war strategy, and their foreign policy is deeply rooted in the idea that states are the only consequential actors on the world stage, and that they can -- and should -- be forced to exercise control over the violent groups that take root within their borders.

Kerry's view, on the other hand, suggests that it is the very premise of civilized states, rather than any one ideology, that is under attack. And no one state, acting alone, can possibly have much impact on the threat, because terrorists will always be able to move around, shelter their money and connect in cyberspace; there are no capitals for a superpower like the United States to bomb, no ambassadors to recall, no economies to sanction. The U.S. military searches for bin Laden, the Russians hunt for the Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev and the Israelis fire missiles at Hamas bomb makers; in Kerry's world, these disparate terrorist elements make up a loosely affiliated network of diabolical villains, more connected to one another by tactics and ideology than they are to any one state sponsor. The conflict, in Kerry's formulation, pits the forces of order versus the forces of chaos, and only a unified community of nations can ensure that order prevails.

One can infer from this that if Kerry were able to speak less guardedly, in a less treacherous atmosphere than a political campaign, he might say, as some of his advisers do, that we are not in an actual war on terror. Wars are fought between states or between factions vying for control of a state; Al Qaeda and its many offspring are neither. If Kerry's foreign-policy frame is correct, then law enforcement probably is the most important, though not the only, strategy you can employ against such forces, who need passports and bank accounts and weapons in order to survive and flourish. Such a theory suggests that, in our grief and fury, we have overrated the military threat posed by Al Qaeda, paradoxically elevating what was essentially a criminal enterprise, albeit a devastatingly sophisticated and global one, into the ideological successor to Hitler and Stalin -- and thus conferring on the jihadists a kind of stature that might actually work in their favor, enabling them to attract more donations and more recruits.

his critical difference between the two men running for the presidency, over what kind of enemy we are fighting and how best to defeat it, is at the core of a larger debate over how the United States should involve itself in the Muslim world. Bush and Kerry are in agreement, as is just about every expert on Islamic culture you can find, that in order for Americans to live and travel securely, the United States must change the widespread perception among many Muslims worldwide that America is morally corrupt and economically exploitative. It is this resentment, felt especially strongly among Arab Muslims, that makes heroes of suicide bombers. The question vexing the foreign-policy establishment in Washington is how you market freedom. Is the establishment of a single, functioning democracy in the Middle East enough to win the ''hearts and minds'' of ordinary Muslims, by convincing them that America is in fact the model for a free, more open society? Or do you need to somehow strike at the underlying conditions -- despotism, hopelessness, economic and social repression -- that breed fundamentalism and violence in the first place?

''You've got to do something to acknowledge the gulf that exists between the dispossessed Arab world and us, because it's huge,'' says Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator who is now president of New School University and who served on the independent 9/11 commission. ''We don't have enough money, we don't have enough parents who are willing to give up their sons and daughters, to win this with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. We don't have the bodies to do it. So if you don't have a real agenda of hope that's as hard-headed and tough as your military and law-enforcement agenda, we're not going to win this thing.''

The neo-conservatives have advanced a viral theory of democracy. In their view, establishing a model democracy in the Arab world, by force if necessary, no matter how many years and lives it takes, would ultimately benefit not only the people of that country but also America too. A free and democratic Iraq, to take the favorite example, will cause the people of other repressive countries in the region to rise up and demand American-style freedom, and these democratic nations will no longer be breeding pools for nihilistic terrorists. Like so much of Bush's policy, this kind of thinking harks directly back to the cold war. The domino theory that took hold during the 1950's maintained that an ideological change in one nation -- ''going'' communist or democratic -- could infect its neighbor; it was based in part on the idea that ideologies could be contagious.

Bush crystallized the new incarnation of this idea in his convention speech last month, notable for the unapologetic sweep and clarity of its vision. ''The terrorists know that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate,'' the president said. ''I believe in the transformational power of liberty. As the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region. Palestinians will hear the message that democracy and reform are within their reach, and so is peace with our good friend Israel. Young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming. Young men will hear the message that national progress and dignity are found in liberty, not tyranny and terror.''

Kerry, too, envisions a freer and more democratic Middle East. But he flatly rejects the premise of viral democracy, particularly when the virus is introduced at gunpoint. ''In this administration, the approach is that democracy is the automatic, easily embraced alternative to every ill in the region,'' he told me. Kerry disagreed. ''You can't impose it on people,'' he said. ''You have to bring them to it. You have to invite them to it. You have to nurture the process.''

Those who know Kerry say this belief is in part a reaction to his own experience in Vietnam, where one understanding of the domino theory (''if Vietnam goes communist, all of Asia will fall'') led to the death of 58,000 Americans, and another (''the South Vietnamese crave democracy'') ran up against the realities of life in a poor, long-war-ravaged country. The people of Vietnam, Kerry found, were susceptible neither to the dogma of communism nor the persuasiveness of American ''liberation.'' As the young Kerry said during his 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: ''We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace.''

Biden, who is perhaps Kerry's closest friend in the Senate, suggests that Kerry sees Bush's advisers as beholden to the same grand and misguided theories. ''John and I never believed that, if you were successful in Iraq, you'd have governments falling like dominoes in the Middle East,'' he told me. ''The neo-cons of today are 'the best and the brightest' who brought us Vietnam. They have taken a construct that's flawed and applied it to a world that isn't relevant.''

In fact, Kerry and his advisers contend that the occupation of Iraq is creating a reverse contagion in the region; they say the fighting -- with its heavy civilian casualties and its pictures, beamed throughout the Arab world, of American aggression -- has been a boon to Al Qaeda recruiters. They frequently cite a Pentagon memo, leaked to the media last year, in which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wondered whether Al Qaeda was recruiting new terrorists faster than the U.S. military could capture or kill them. ''God help us if we damage the shrine in Najaf,'' Richard Holbrooke told me on a day when marines surrounded insurgent Shiites inside the shrine, ''and we create a new group of Shiites who some years from now blow up the Statue of Liberty or something like that, all because we destroyed the holiest site in Shiism.''

If forced democracy is ultimately Bush's panacea for the ills that haunt the world, as Kerry suggests it is, then Kerry's is diplomacy. Kerry mentions the importance of cooperating with the world community so often that some of his strongest supporters wish he would ease up a bit. (''When people hear multilateral, they think multi-mush,'' Biden despaired.) But multilateralism is not an abstraction to Kerry, whose father served as a career diplomat during the years after World War II. The only time I saw Kerry truly animated during two hours of conversation was when he talked about the ability of a president to build relationships with other leaders.

''We need to engage more directly and more respectfully with Islam, with the state of Islam, with religious leaders, mullahs, imams, clerics, in a way that proves this is not a clash with the British and the Americans and the old forces they remember from the colonial days,'' Kerry told me during a rare break from campaigning, in Seattle at the end of August. ''And that's all about your diplomacy.''

When I suggested that effecting such changes could take many years, Kerry shook his head vehemently and waved me off.

''Yeah, it is long-term, but it can be dramatically effective in the short term. It really can be. I promise you.'' He leaned his head back and slapped his thighs. ''A new presidency with the right moves, the right language, the right outreach, the right initiatives, can dramatically alter the world's perception of us very, very quickly.

''I know Mubarak well enough to know what I think I could achieve in the messaging and in the press in Egypt,'' Kerry went on. ''And, similarly, with Jordan and with King Abdullah, and what we can do in terms of transformation in the economics of the region by getting American businesspeople involved, getting some stability and really beginning to proactively move in those ways. We just haven't been doing any of this stuff. We've been stunningly disengaged, with the exception of Iraq.

''I mean, you ever hear anything about the 'road map' anymore?'' he asked, referring to the international plan for phasing in peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which Kerry supports. ''No. You ever hear anything about anything anymore? No. Do you hear anything about this greater Middle East initiative, the concepts or anything? No. I think we're fighting a very narrow, myopic kind of war.''

It is not a coincidence that Kerry's greatest success in the Senate came not during his long run of investigations but in the realm of diplomacy. He and John McCain worked for several years to settle the controversy over P.O.W.-M.I.A.'s and to normalize relations with Vietnam -- an achievement that Kerry's Senate colleagues consider his finest moment. ''He should talk about it more,'' Bob Kerrey said. ''He transformed the region.'' In the same way, John Kerry sees himself as a kind of ambassador-president, shuttling to world capitals and reintegrating America, by force of personality, into the world community.

He would begin, if sworn into office, by going immediately to the United Nations to deliver a speech recasting American foreign policy. Whereas Bush has branded North Korea ''evil'' and refuses to negotiate head on with its authoritarian regime, Kerry would open bilateral talks over its burgeoning nuclear program. Similarly, he has said he would rally other nations behind sanctions against Iran if that country refuses to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Kerry envisions appointing a top-level envoy to restart the Middle East peace process, and he's intent on getting India and Pakistan to adopt key provisions of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. (One place where Kerry vows to take a harder line than Bush is Pakistan, where Bush has embraced the military ruler Pervez Musharraf, and where Kerry sees a haven for chaos in the vast and lawless region on the border with Afghanistan.) In all of this, Kerry intends to use as leverage America's considerable capacity for economic aid; a Kerry adviser told me, only slightly in jest, that Kerry's most tempting fantasy is to attend the G-8 summit.

erry's view, that the 21st century will be defined by the organized world's struggle against agents of chaos and lawlessness, might be the beginning of a compelling vision. The idea that America and its allies, sharing resources and using the latest technologies, could track the movements of terrorists, seize their bank accounts and carry out targeted military strikes to eliminate them, seems more optimistic and more practical than the notion that the conventional armies of the United States will inevitably have to punish or even invade every Islamic country that might abet radicalism.

And yet, you can understand why Kerry has been so tentative in advancing this idea. It's comforting to think that Al Qaeda might be as easily marginalized as a bunch of drug-running thugs, that an ''effective'' assault on its bank accounts might cripple its twisted campaign against Americans. But Americans are frightened -- an emotion that has benefited Bush, and one that he has done little to dissuade -- and many of them perceive a far more existential threat to their lives than the one Kerry describes. In this climate, Kerry's rather dry recitations about money-laundering laws and intelligence-sharing agreements can sound oddly discordant. We are living at a time that feels historically consequential, where people seem to expect -- and perhaps deserve -- a theory of the world that matches the scope of their insecurity.

Theoretically, Kerry could still find a way to wrap his ideas into some bold and cohesive construct for the next half-century -- a Kerry Doctrine, perhaps, or a campaign against chaos, rather than a war on terror -- that people will understand and relate to. But he has always been a man who prides himself on appreciating the subtleties of public policy, and everything in his experience has conditioned him to avoid unsubtle constructs and grand designs. His aversion to Big Think has resulted in one of the campaign's oddities: it is Bush, the man vilified by liberals as intellectually vapid, who has emerged as the de facto visionary in the campaign, trying to impose some long-term thematic order on a dangerous and disorderly world, while Kerry carves the globe into a series of discrete problems with specific solutions.

When Kerry first told me that Sept. 11 had not changed him, I was surprised. I assumed everyone in America -- and certainly in Washington -- had been changed by that day. I assumed he was being overly cautious, afraid of providing his opponents with yet another cheap opportunity to call him a flip-flopper. What I came to understand was that, in fact, the attacks really had not changed the way Kerry viewed or talked about terrorism -- which is exactly why he has come across, to some voters, as less of a leader than he could be. He may well have understood the threat from Al Qaeda long before the rest of us. And he may well be right, despite the ridicule from Cheney and others, when he says that a multinational, law-enforcement-like approach can be more effective in fighting terrorists. But his less lofty vision might have seemed more satisfying -- and would have been easier to talk about in a political campaign -- in a world where the twin towers still stood.

John Kerry can't stop telling lies.

2004-10-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here is another quick example of John Kerry's dishonesty.

CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT JAMIE MCINTYRE: "The fact that the Army chief of staff was not fired or forced to retire early is just that, Judy. It is a fact." (CNN's "Inside Politics," 9/24/04)

KERRY KEEPS REPEATING FALSE CLAIM

October 7, 2004: Kerry Claimed "I Will Do What The Generals Believe We Need To Do Without Having Any Chilling Effect As The President Put In Place By Firing General Shinseki." (Sen. John Kerry, Press Conference, Englewood, CO, 10/7/04)

October 5, 2004: Kerry Claimed President "Fired His Own Army Chief Of Staff [Eric Shinseki] When His Army Chief Of Staff Said How Many Troops He'd Need [In Iraq]." (Sen. John Kerry, Press Conference, Tipton, IA, 10/5/04)

THE FACTS

In Fact, Shinseki's Retirement Was Announced In April 2002, Long Before He Testified About Potential Conduct Of Iraq War. "Defense Sec. Rumsfeld and Army Secretary Thomas White have settled on Gen. John M. Keane, Army deputy chief of staff, to succeed the current chief, Gen. Eric Shinseki. Gen. Shinseki does not retire for more than a year. Sources offer differing reasons for the early selection." (Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, "Inside The Ring," The Washington Times , 4/19/02)

It Was Not Until Late February 2003, More Than Ten Months Later, That Shinseki Said "Several Hundred Thousand" Troops Would Be Required For "Post-Hostilities Control" In Iraq. SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): "General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?" ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF ERIC SHINSEKI: "In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commander's exact requirements . But I think..." LEVIN: "How about a range?" SHINSEKI: "I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, are probably, you know, a figure that would be required." (Committee On Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/25/03)

MEDIA CORRECTS THE RECORD

Shinseki "Completed His Full Term Of Chief Of Staff And Retired On Schedule." BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: "John Kerry insisted today, as he has repeatedly over the past year, that the Army's former Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki was forced into early retirement for saying, in the run up to the war for Iraq, that not enough troops were set to be deployed to the region. Kerry said Shinseki is among the administration officials who, quote, 'lost their jobs for telling the truth.' But Shinseki was not forced out. He completed his full term of chief of staff and retired on schedule. However, his successor's name did come out a year ahead of the time, which his supporters say diminished Shinseki's influence in his final year." (Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume," 9/20/04)

Shinseki's Retirement Was Announced Well Before He Criticized Iraq Troop Levels. WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: "Kerry also said General Shinseki was forced to retire as a result of his criticism of troop levels in Iraq, but his retirement was announced in April of 2002, and he made the statement, his criticism of troop levels, in 2003." (CNN's "NewsNight," 10/1/04)

John Kerry's Assertion That Shinseki Was Fired Is a "Factual Mistake." ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "Also, there was at least one factual mistake in the speech. John Kerry noted at one point that General Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, was fired for not providing the right answers that President Bush was looking for in terms of troop levels, but, in fact, Shinseki retired on his own." (CNN's "News From CNN," 9/8/04)

There is a difference between an innocent mistake and lying. What John Kerry is boldy saying is a lie! He and his handlers are well aware of the real facts. Their reason for continually parroting out these lies is to confuse the uninformed general public. This is a tactic that the Liberal Left has whole heartedly embraced. I also feel the need to remind everyone of who else used this strategy to win public favor. Joseph Goebbels once said "if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth." If you look at the actions of the modern Liberal they all point to a one sided view that no one has the right to disagree with(see my previous post "Now I'm a religious fanatic"). If you offer any resistance to their way of thinking, you are instantly labeled a biggot, baby killer, or someone who does not care about the environment. Facts are like kryptonite to these demigogs who pray on people who do not find it neccesary to research what they see on tv, read in the newspapers, and hear on the radio. We must be vigilent in this time of decision. Our future and our very lives depend on it.

Bishop: Anglican church may be beyond repair

2004-10-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

The global Anglican Communion is "broken" over the confirmation of a gay bishop in New Hampshire and may be beyond repair, the most influential Anglican leader in Africa said today.

Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria also said that he views the head of the US Episcopal Church as an advocate for gays and lesbians and no longer trusts him.

Akinola's comments come less than two weeks before a panel is scheduled to release its report on whether the 77-million-member Communion can bridge its divide over homosexuality. The Episcopal Church is the US province of the Anglican Communion.

"The church worldwide today is no longer what it used to be," Akinola said. "Now, (the Episcopal Church) has intentionally and deliberately given up the faith."

Akinola, head of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, represents one of the fastest-growing Anglican provinces, comprising more than 17 million members.

He is also chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, with more than 37 million believers, and has emerged as a leading voice for conservative Anglicans worldwide.

The head of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, has said repeatedly that because of the democratic nature of the American denomination, which elects its bishops by popular vote, he could not unilaterally stop last year's consecration of gay Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Akinola contended that Griswold, who led Robinson’s consecration ceremony, could have used the power of his office along with prayer to persuade Episcopalians to reverse course. Instead, "he is the promoter of this whole agenda", Akinola said.

"It is the church leaders who are supposed to lead us in righteousness," he said.

The panel of Anglican leaders, called the Lambeth Commission, is due to release its report in London on October 18.

Akinola and other conservative archbishops have demanded that some disciplinary action be taken against the Episcopal Church.

Click on the link to see the source. Irish Examiner> Breaking News> Bishop: Anglican church may be beyond repair

Hey John, show some respect for our true Allies.

2004-10-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

POLISH PRESIDENT SLAMS KERRY AFTER DEBATE SNUB

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski has slammed Dem president hopeful John Kerry for not recognizing Poland's contributions and sacrifice to the war in Iraq.

"It is sad that a senator with 20 years of experience does not recognize Polish contribution. This is immoral," Kwasniewski told FACTS in an interview commenting on the US Presidential Debate.

"It is sad that a senator with 20 years of experience underestimates Polish sacrifice, this is sad."

The Polish President added however that one should consider this was a part of the ongoing electoral campaign.

"I do not think this was out of ignorance," the president emphasized on the TVN Facts.

"There is one thing which should be stated clearly: this coalition is not just the United States, Great Britain, Australia alone; it also involves participation of Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Spanish soldiers who have died. It is immoral not to recognize the involvement we contributed based on our conviction that there should be unity in fighting terrorism, that there was a need to display international solidarity and that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous individual of this world."

"President Bush acted like a real Texan gentleman, he made sure to show appreciation for other countries' involvement in the coalition," Kwasniewski pointed out.

Click on this link to see the source. POLISH PRESIDENT SLAMS KERRY AFTER DEBATE SNUB

Woo Hoo

2004-10-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a little giddy this morning. This Friday I get to tour the USS Ronald Reagan with Congressman Duncan Hunter(chairman of the House Armed Services Committee). I have been looking foward to this since the building of this grand ship was first proposed. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to one of the greatest presidents to ever live than having the biggest most powerfull fighting ship named after him. As with his legacy the USS Ronald Reagan will be used to project Liberty and Freedom all over the globe. Finally I must thank my friend whom I will call G. due to privacy issues for this wonderful opportunity. After my tour I will give a full accounting of the experience.

TRIALS OF FAITH

2004-09-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

I have just been informed that a friend from work and his girlfriend have suffered a tragic loss. Last night during labor their daughter's hear beat was lost and their baby girl was stillborn. This was their first child and a source of great anticipated pride and joy. I cannot begin to know the pain and anguish they are going through. All I can do is offer my support and prayers to help them cope with the loss of this precious child. For those of you who read this Blog if I can ask you to say a prayer for Kyle and Taylor and for their little angel Dakota Leigh, I would forever be grateful to you. As for me all I can say is: All children are born perfect in the eyes of our Father so you have nothing to fear. May the knowledge that Dakota is now laughing and smiling waiting for you up in heaven bring some level of comfort. Tonight I will say a special prayer blessing for you and Taylor, asking God to shine his grace on you to give you strength to get through these trials. I have spent enough time with you Kyle to know that you are a Honest, loving man and Taylor the occasions I have seen you show me you have a kind, gentle spirit. I have no doubt that all three of you will be together again in heaven someday. I know the clouds of sorrow are resting heavy on your hearts today, but do not loose sight of the light of Faith. It will guide you through the darkest storm. The power of prayer and the loving mercy in God's answers will bring you through this pain and in time will fill your hearts with joy again. If there is anything you need don't hesitate to call on me, and I leave these humble words with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A letter from "The Green Side"

2004-09-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

A Birthday Message for Dave - Sep 28, 04

Hi David:

Although you and your command are in our family's daily thoughts and prayers, you are especially present in our hearts here in St. Louis today on your birthday. While Megan and Emily remind their young classmates each school day at morning prayer at CPOP to pray for the safety of all our brave soldiers fighting for freedom & justice in Iraq, today they will add (as they did along with Kathleen and I at breakfast), and Lord most especially bless and protect Megan's godfather Dave - a brave Marine infantry officer from MO - who is spending this birthday in Iraq fighting for us & our country.

I have known you for nearly 30 years, and yet, during this, your 2nd tour in Iraq, you continue to ACT and LEAD in such a manner that continually humbles me and truly honors me to call you my good friend. While it is difficult to articulate, I sincerely hope you know and understand the prolific level of support that exists for you and your family here at home.

Your eloquent way of clearly and plainly painting the true story of what is happening on the ground in Iraq in your letters to your father is a gift to all that encounter them. And as many other visitors to this site have indicated, your message is being heard and understood despite that what is spewed by the popular press. We believe in you, your fellow Marines and Sailors and the mission you have been given. Let your men know they have the support and admiration of the American people.

John D., the man behind the greenside.com, recently advised me this site has experienced as many as an astounding 9000 hits on a single day - even the LA Times has (Sept 5) published one of your recent letters. Your words are not only being read they are anxiously anticipated by scores of persons throughout this country and others.

Anecdotally, the number of yellow "Support Our Troops" vehicle magnets in the STL area seem to multiplying like rabbits these days - actually see more of these magnets than political bumper stickers in this election season. I recently flew a regional jet from Atlanta where at least 1/3 of the passengers were Army coming home from 8 months in Iraq, and I witnessed dozens of "THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY" exchanged between business man and woman flying that day and those Army soldiers coming home.

You, my friend, are a true Patriot and Leader. I can't help but notice that a theme that runs through your letters is one that highlights the actions and achievements of those men in your command or others in the coalition effort. That is a trait of a true Leader, which you are. Your men are fortunate to have a Leader that inspires his command by example, and paints a clear and understandable vision of the mission ahead of them based on our American core values. You are a mentor and teacher to your command - they and America are fortunate to have such an intelligent, talented, motivational Leader as you at what is now the epicenter in this struggle to stamp out Fundamentally inspired terrorism.

Real leaders, like yourself, never take the credit for what is being accomplished, which is why we don't hear about your medal or your promotions - you instead shine the light on those in your command who, as you properly point out, are displaying heroism on a daily basis. However, the reason I and countless others hold you out as an example of what a true hero is to those most important to us, our children, is because you remind all of us what selflessness, commitment, bravery and honor are all about by your ACTIONS.

Hang tough my man - we will keep the home fire's burning, and will do all we can to spread your inspiring word and help make sure we, at home, have the stomach to see this through. We know you can accomplish all asked to do, when given the green light.

Please take care of yourself and your men. We, in the middle of this great country, are fully aware that we are able to enjoy this gorgeous Fall day because of the sacrifices you and your men are making today, like the sacrifices of those in the military who have gone before you. THANK YOU! from the bottom of our hearts.

May God continue to protect and bless you, your family, and you command on this your birthday. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to assist you/your great family during this second tour of duty.

Esto Vir, Rock Chalk Jayhawk, With Sincere and Utmost Personal Admiration,

Steve

Click here to see the source. The Green Side

Kids Visit Margaritaville

2004-09-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

So do you have to pay extra for this kind of pirk?

Virginia grade schoolers accidentally served alcohol at lunch

Earlier this month, the staff, faculty, and Board of Trustees at Virginia's private Alexandria Country Day School had a Mexican-themed dinner complete with some tasty margaritas. For some reason, the leftover hooch was placed in a school refrigerator. You can probably guess what's coming next. On September 10, the booze was mistaken for "limeade" by school workers and actually served at lunch to students in the third, fourth, and fifth grades. The below letter from school head Alexander Harvey was sent home with the kids. The margarita mixup came after the school ran out of milk and apparently had no negative affect of the students, who "sipped it and said that it didn't taste good." They're young, they'll learn. An embarrassed and contrite Harvey promised that booze will now be banned on campus and all faculty parties will be held off-site.

Click here to see the source. Kids Visit Margaritaville - September 29, 2004

RNC Creates Web Sites to Criticize Kerry

2004-09-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

Now this one made me chuckle. Check out the links below, they do have alot of good faith specific information.

Republicans have one message for followers of many faiths: Sen. John Kerry is wrong.

Wrong for Catholics, Mormons and Evangelicals say a number of Web sites that the Republican National Committee has created. Each Web site compiles excerpts of Kerry's comments and Senate voting record on social issues such as abortion, civil unions for same sex couples and school choice.

Some headlines on the Web site for Catholics say, "Kerry Said Vatican Should Not Instruct Catholic Politicians, Calling It 'Inappropriate'" and "Kerry Expressed 'Moral Outrage' With Vatican's Statement On Gay Marriage." Kerry is Catholic.

Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer said the tactic is "premised on the tactics of division, smear and insult. It's unfortunate, it's un-American and John Kerry is going to continue to make his case and make sure his record is not twisted by the Bush attack machine."

At least one religious coalition, the left-leaning Interfaith Alliance, has called the Web sites insensitive, saying the GOP is trying to interpret religious beliefs for political advantage. Interfaith Alliance president Rev. C. Weldon Gaddy called the tactic "abhorrent."

RNC spokeswoman Tara Wall said the sites are part of an effort by Republicans to reach out to diverse groups.

KERRY WRONG FOR MORMONS
KERRY WRONG FOR EVANGELICALS
KERRY WRONG FOR CATHOLICS

Click here to see the source. RNC Creates Web Sites to Criticize Kerry

So I'm a fanatic now?

2004-09-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

Today during lunch me and a friend of mine were discussing the fact that we have all these television channels and nothing good to watch(at least not at noon time). During the course of the conversation I had recommended Dennis Miller's new daily TV show to him when this guy in his late fourties to early fifties piped in how he thought it was alright but he didn't like Dennis's politics. Right away this statement screamed "Liberal Hippie". Now during the course of the encounter this guy out of the blue he brings up the abortion issue. To make things clear I am not a supporter of abortions. But I am also not going to say that it needs to be banned. I believe that it is a very personal decision that is up to the individual women and is something that she will have to live with for the rest of her life. This may not be the most popular view with alot of religious people but it is the fairest way of looking at things. Before legalized abortion women were still getting the in them "back alley" clinics. This resulted in alot of problems after the procedure, so I believe it should still be legal. Ok now that I got that off my chest, there is one part about the abortion debate that I am nonflexible about. I am a strong proponent of manditory parental consent for all procedures administered to girls under the legal age of 18. There is no good argument you can give me that will change my mind so don't even try it. I believe since the minimum age to serve in the military is 17 and is a life and death decision that must have parental consent, the same should go for terminating an unborn child. So to make a long story short because of that one stipulation this "Hippie" labeled me a religious fanatic.

Man who swore Bush into Air Guard speaks out

2004-09-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Ed Morrisey Jr. has his opinion about rumors President Bush received preferential treatment when he was allowed into the Texas Air National Guard in the late 1960s.

The Blount Countian also has firsthand knowledge.

The 75-year-old Jackson Hills resident is a retired colonel with Texas Air National Guard. He swore Lt. George W. Bush into the service in May 1968.

On Thursday, Morrisey said the argument that Bush got off easy by being in the National Guard doesn't take into consideration the context of the 1960s.

"Bush and the others were flying several flights day or night over the Gulf of Mexico to identify the unknown,'' he said. "The Cold War was a nervous time. You never knew. There were other things going on equally important to the country, and the Air National Guard had a primary role in it.''

Morrisey said the commander he worked for at the unit in Texas was sent there to rebuild the image of the unit. There were only two to four pilot training slots given to them per year, he said. Individuals questioned by an evaluation board and then chosen by the commander had to be the best.

"Bush was selected and he turned out just fine,'' he said.

According to Morrisey, after Bush began working as a fighter pilot, he became regarded as one of the best pilots there. Unit commander Col. Maurice Udell considered Bush to be one of his top five pilots, Morrisey said.

"The kid did good,'' he said.

Each pilot had to perform alert duty where they patrolled for unidentified aircraft during the threat of the Cold War, Morrisey said.

"Bush Jr. did good for us,'' Morrisey said. "He pulled alert and he did it all.''

Morrisey said that while Bush didn't get preferential treatment, not everyone was allowed into the National Guard.

"We wanted the best we could get. We never knowingly took an unworthy individual in the units I belonged to,'' he said. "You're only as good your worst individual.''

This isn't the first time a reporter called Morrisey asking whether or not Bush received preferential treatment. Shortly after Republicans nominated Bush for president in 2000, a reporter from Texas called Morrisey.

"That floored me. The only people that got preferential treatment was when Jimmy Carter pardoned those guys that went to Canada,'' he said of individuals who fled to Canada to avoid the draft during the war in Vietnam.

Speaking of the controversy surrounding Bush's Guard service during the Vietnam era, Morrisey said: ``I think it's tragic. I think real people can filter through this. At least I hope so.''

Morrisey said he agreed with Bush's work as president and supported the administration's aggressive stance toward fighting terrorism and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We've got to eliminate terrorists,'' he said. "Let's get them where they're living instead of them getting my grandkids and great-grandkids here.''

Morrisey worked as the executive officer of the 147th Fighter Group from February of 1967 to July of 1968. From Texas he came to Alcoa where he was the first commandant of the Noncommissioned Officer Academy at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base. He also was "dedicated to the development'' of the Air National Guard Leadership School and the Officer Preparatory Academy to commission Air Guard officers.

He was commandant for all three schools and became the first commander of the I.G. Brown Professional Military Education Center.

Morrisey has been involved in the community, including being a former member of the Blount Chamber of Commerce, president of the Maryville Kiwanis Club, Blount County Boys Club board member and on the ALCOA Scholarship Selection Committee.

Click on the link to see the source. Man who swore Bush into Air Guard speaks out

Guess Who's a GOP Booster?

2004-09-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

Now this was a little unexpected.

The CEO of CBS's parent company endorses President Bush.

With the scandal at CBS still festering, questions are being raised about whether a felony was committed when the network broadcast apparently forged memos in an attempt to discredit George W. Bush. Yesterday, the chairman of CBS's parent company chose Hong Kong as a place to drop a little bomb. Sumner Redstone, who calls himself a "liberal Democrat," said he's supporting President Bush.

The chairman of the entertainment giant Viacom said the reason was simple: Republican values are what U.S. companies need. Speaking to some of America's and Asia's top executives gathered for Forbes magazine's annual Global CEO Conference, Mr. Redstone declared: "I look at the election from what's good for Viacom. I vote for what's good for Viacom. I vote, today, Viacom.

"I don't want to denigrate Kerry," he went on, "but from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people. . . . But from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company."

Sharing the stage with Mr. Redstone was Steve Forbes, CEO, president and editor in chief of Forbes and a former Republican presidential aspirant, who quipped: "Obviously you're a very enlightened CEO."

Mr. Redstone's unexpected declaration came at a time when an unwelcome spotlight is directed at him and his board because of the CBS airing of what everyone now believes was a fake memo alleging that Mr. Bush shirked his duties three decades ago in the Texas Air National Guard. On Tuesday, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie alleged a leftist bias at Viacom. While it was well known that Mary Mapes, the producer who did most of the reporting on the memos, is a liberal, and that anchorman Dan Rather, has always been much tougher on Republicans, the Viacom board had heretofore remained in the background.
Mr. Gillespie said, "This demonstrates a serious lack of judgment separate and apart from the lack of judgment demonstrated in running a report based on discredited documents. Did this producer's own political viewpoint cloud her judgment? Is CBS News's decision to neither suspend nor release the producer in question a result of judgment clouded by Viacom and CBS owner Sumner Redstone's role as a Kerry fundraiser, or Viacom President Tom Freston's public support of John Kerry for President?"

Mr. Redstone's office immediately went into overdrive, denying on Wednesday that he's a raised funds for the Democratic presidential nominee. Then came yesterday's "I vote Republican" vow in Hong Kong.

It was all the more surprising because the Boston-born Mr. Redstone was co-chairman of Edmund Muskie's presidential campaign in 1972. He's also a close friend of the other Massachusetts senator, Ted Kennedy. Monday's New York Sun, quoting the Federal Election Commission, said that since 1998 Mr. Redstone had given $50,000 to the Democratic Party. He's also donated the maximum $2,000 to the Kerry campaign, after supporting Al Gore in 2000.

In his book, "A Passion to Win," Mr. Redstone wrote, "From my early days I have considered myself a liberal Democrat. . . . I had no respect for Nixon. . . . My efforts on Senator Muskie's behalf apparently landed me on Nixon's notorious 'enemies list.' I took that as a badge of honor."
Of his 13-member board, two are former cabinet members for Democratic presidents. It is this board that will ponder what to do about the Rather-Mapes-CBS mess. The bombshell from Hong Kong will not come as welcome news to those responsible for "memogate."

Click on the link to see the source. Guess Who's a GOP Booster?

House Blocks Court on Pledge Case Rulings

2004-09-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Now this is some good news.

WASHINGTON - The House passed legislation Thursday that would prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on whether the words "under God" should be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance.

In a politically and emotionally charged debate six weeks before Election Day, Democrats said majority Republicans were debasing the Constitution to force a vote that could hurt Democrats at the ballot box.

Supporters insisted Congress has always had authority to limit federal court jurisdiction, and the legislation is needed to protect an affirmation of religion that is part of the national heritage.

The bill, which the House approved, 247-173, would prohibit federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing cases involving the pledge and its recitation and would prevent federal courts from striking the words "under God" from the pledge.

The legislation has little chance of advancing in the Senate this year, but it laid down another marker for politicians seeking to differentiate themselves from their election opponents on volatile social issues of the day. Other "wedge" issues that have come up or may arise before the election include gay marriage and flag-burning.

In June, the Supreme Court dismissed, on a technicality, a 2002 federal court decision that the religious reference made the pledge unconstitutional.

Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who wrote the amendment on legislation before the House on Thursday, said the outcome could be different if the high court rules on the substance, or "if we allow activist judges to start creating law and say that it is wrong to somehow allow schoolchildren to say 'under God' in the pledge."

In such a scenario, Akin said, Congress will have "emasculated the very heart of what America has always been about."

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said, "We're playing with fire here, we are playing with the national unity of this country" by undoing 200 years of federal judicial review and letting each state make its own interpretation of constitutional law.

The vote paralleled another in July, when the House prevented federal courts from ordering states to recognize same-sex unions sanctioned in other states.

"Far from violating the 'separation of powers,' legislation that leaves state courts with jurisdiction to decide certain classes of cases would be an exercise of one of the very 'checks and balances' provided for in the Constitution," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

But many Democrats said the real objective of Thursday's debate was to force them into an unpopular vote just weeks before the election. Aside from the constitutional issue, a large percentage of Americans, and almost all members of Congress, think "under God" should stay in the pledge.

"This bill has been brought to the floor to embarrass some members, so I respect whatever decisions they have to make in light of the motivations behind it," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. In the end, 34 Democrats voted for the bill and six Republicans opposed it.

A closer vote was on an amendment by Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., that would have returned the legislation to its original form, under which lower federal courts were barred from ruling on the pledge but the Supreme Court retained its authority.

There is no direct precedent for making exceptions to the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction, said Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., who backed the original bill but opposed the changes.

"The issue today may be the pledge, but what if the issue tomorrow is Second Amendment (gun) rights, civil rights, environmental protection, or a host of other issue that members may hold dear?" she asked.

"Under God" has been part of the pledge since 1954, when Congress passed and President Eisenhower signed a law amending the pledge to include the phrase.

The bill is H.R. 2028.

Click here to see the source. House Blocks Court on Pledge Case Rulings

Kerry: Allawi's Take on Iraq Unrealistic

2004-09-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, so a nothing Senator from one of the smallest states in the Nation now knows more about the state of another country than its Leader. John Kerry's arrogance is only over shadowed by his narcissism.

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) said Thursday that Iraq (news - web sites)'s Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the "best face" on Bush administration policy.

Shortly after Allawi, the interim government's prime minister, gave a rosy portrayal of progress toward peace in Iraq, Kerry said the assessment contradicted reality on the ground.

"The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA (news - web sites) estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story," Kerry said.

Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress that democratic elections will take place in Iraq in January as scheduled, but Kerry said that was unrealistic.

"The United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq," Kerry told reporters outside a Columbus firehouse. "There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can't hold an election in a no-go zone."

Kerry's remarks come one day after he told The Associated Press that President Bush (news - web sites)'s statement that a "handful" of people are willing to kill to stop progress in Iraq was a blunder that showed he was avoiding reality.

"George Bush (news - web sites) let Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) escape at Tora Bora," Kerry said in a brief interview Wednesday. "George Bush retreated from Fallujah and other communities in Iraq which are now overrun with terrorists and threaten our troops. And George Bush said on the record we can't win the war on terror.

"And even today, he blundered again saying there are only a handful of terrorists in Iraq," Kerry said. "I think he's living in a make believe world."

Bush, campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, said: "It's hard to help a country go from tyranny to elections to peace when there are a handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process. And that's what you're seeing on the TV screens. You know, these people cannot beat us militarily."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday, "It only took 19 people to take down the World Trade Center towers and kill 3,000 people." He said that in Iraq, "you've seen how a small number of suicide bombers can have a dramatic effect."

Bush said Wednesday the insurgents "use the only tool at their disposal, which is beheadings and death, to try to shake our will. They understand the nature of America. ... We weep when we think about the families affected by those who have been brutalized by these terrorists."

Kerry's voice was scratchy and breaking from a cold on Wednesday. He canceled most public events for Thursday in Columbus and in Iowa to rest his voice, though his words were clear at the firehouse. The campaign said running mate John Edwards (news - web sites) would take Kerry's place in Iowa.

Kerry spoke to the AP in West Palm Beach, Fla., shortly before boarding a flight to Columbus and after Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) delivered a scathing attack on the Democrat. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, Cheney argued that Kerry has a penchant for wavering that makes him a weak alternative to a "steadfast leader, which is exactly what we have in President George W. Bush (news - web sites)."

"John Kerry gives every indication that his repeated efforts to cast and recast and redefine the war on terror and our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites), of someone who lacks the resolve, the determination and the conviction to prevail in this conflict," Cheney said. "He has demonstrated throughout the course of this campaign that he lacks the clarity of vision and purpose necessary to lead our country during extraordinary times."

Kerry said he has laid out "steps to win the war, not to change, not to retreat, steps to win. George Bush is trying to fight a phantom here because he won't tell the American people the truth, so he sets up something that's not a real issue and attacks it."

Bush "missed a huge opportunity" at the United Nations (news - web sites) this week to try to persuade leaders of other nations to join the United States in Iraq and the broader anti-terror war, Kerry said.

"I don't think he's providing the leadership we need," Kerry said. "I will do a better job of dealing with Iraq and winning the war and fighting the war on terror, period."

In a day filled with rhetorical charges and countercharges at campaign stops and in advertising all four candidates found fault. Responding to Cheney, Edwards said in a statement that Bush and Cheney "are the last two people we need a lecture from about how to keep the American people safe."

"It is the height of absurdity for Dick Cheney, a chief architect of the Iraq quagmire, to talk about the leadership needed to fix the mess in Iraq that he created," said Edwards, reviving a word "quagmire" often used to describe the Vietnam War.

Clink here to see the source. Kerry: Allawi's Take on Iraq Unrealistic

Green still undecided on Yom Kippur games

2004-09-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

Green still undecided on Yom Kippur games

Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Shawn Green will definitely sit out at least one game of a key weekend series against the San Francisco Giants in observance of Yom Kippur, but will wait until Thursday to make his final decision.

With the Dodgers leading the Giants by just 1 1/2 games in the NL West, Green said Wednesday there's a possibility he'll sit out both Friday night and Saturday afternoon. He planned to talk to his wife and parents before deciding.

``I need another day,'' said Green, who added that the issue has kept him awake at night. ``I've been struggling hard with this. Obviously, it's very important to me, my religion is very important to me, too. It's a really tough deal.''

Green said he spoke Tuesday with members of the Dodgers' organization and was leaning toward playing one game and not the other.

``I've bounced back and forth and am just trying to do the right thing,'' he said before the Dodgers played the San Diego Padres. ``It's hard to know what that is. I've really been toying with two different options: Play one of them or not play at all. I will miss at least one game.''

Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, starts at sunset Friday, and the three-game series at San Francisco begins that night. Saturday's game was given a 1:05 p.m. PDT start because it will be televised by Fox, and the Jewish Day of Atonement does not end until sunset that night.

Green wants to make a final decision by Thursday.

``I'm totally committed to getting to the postseason and winning, and at the same time I'm committed to my religion and what I stood for in the past,'' he said. ``I wish there was an easy solution, but there's not.''

Asked if he's feeling pressure or support from the organization, he replied: ``Just support. Whomever I talk to has been supportive and the more I think about it, it's a really tough situation,'' Green said. ``I wish Yom Kippur could be in April, but it's not.''

Green has missed only 10 of 798 games in five seasons with the Dodgers, including Sept. 26, 2001, when he observed Yom Kippur and ended a streak of 415 consecutive games played.

Click the link to see the source. Green still undecided on Yom Kippur games

CBS Steered Forged Doc Source to Kerry Campaign

2004-09-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

In what may be the most damaging revelation yet in the Rathergate document scandal, CBS News is admitting that it steered the source of forged military records damaging to President Bush to the Kerry campaign.

In exchange for the meeting with Kerry communications director Joe Lockhart, that source - former National Guard Commander Bill Burkett - agreed to give CBS copies of the Bush records. USA Today is set to report in Tuesday editions:

"Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a female producer talked to him about the "60 Minutes" program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett."

"At Burkett's request, we gave his [telephone] number to the campaign," Betsy West, senior CBS News vice president, confessed to USA Today.

Late Monday, CBS said it was investigating the role of "60 Minutes" star producer Mary Mapes in setting up the contact between Burkett and Lockhart.

"The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS's handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election," the paper said.

Aly Colon, a news ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said the collusion between CBS and the Kerry campaign to damage President Bush "poses a real danger to the potential credibility of a news organization."

The White House reacted sharply to the Lockhart development, with Communications Director Dan Bartlett complaining, "The fact that CBS News would coordinate with the most senior levels of Senator Kerry's campaign to attack the president is a stunning and deeply troubling revelation."

Click here to see the source. NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story

So now according to this very rich woman, I am a "Scumbag"

2004-09-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

Teresa: My Critics Are 'Scumbags'

Hot-tempered would-be first lady Teresa Heinz Kerry has once again lashed out at her critics, this time during a Pittsburgh television interview where she called them "scumbags."

The ugly outburst, revealed nationally for the first time in a lengthy profile in the Sept. 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, is the most outrageous so far by the billionaire ketchup heiress and pushes the bounds of behavior voters might accept in a first lady. The New Yorker's Judith Thurman chronicled some of Heinz Kerry's more well-known verbal gaffes before noting the videotaped vulgarity:

"She dismissed voters skeptical of her husband's health-care proposals as 'idiots,' and, in a television interview with a Pittsburgh anchorwoman, employed the word 'scumbags' to describe some of her detractors," Thurman said.

"There are these bizarre moments that make you shudder," one Kerry adviser told Thurman. "Like calling herself African-American to black audiences."

In an effort to put Heinz Kerry's vulgar verbiage in context, The New Yorker writer explained, "I doubt that she knows the literal meaning of 'scumbag,' but perhaps, after forty years in America, nearly thirty of them as a political wife, observing how the flaws and contradictions of a personality as complex as hers are melted down for ammunition by the other side, she should have learned it."

Click on the link to see the source of the article. Scumbags

Kerry Sets a Record: 14 Flip-Flops in One Speech

2004-09-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

You just can't make up stuff this good.

Sen. John Kerry set some kind of record today in a speech to his fellow leftists at New York University. The Republican National Committee counted 14 flip-flops on Iraq.

Among the more egregious of the tragicomic whoppers noted:

Kerry now claims the "most important task" is to win the "war on terrorism." Yet Kerry, speaking to his pets at the New York Times in March, refused to call the war on terror a war, RNC recalled.
Kerry then: "The final victory in the war on terror depends on a victory in the war of ideas, much more than the war on the battlefield. And the war - not the war, I don't want to use that terminology."

Kerry now claims Iraq was a "diversion from" the war on terror. On Dec. 15 he said: "Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror."

Kerry now claims Saddam Hussein's evil was not enough to justify war. Here's what he said in a speech July 29, 2002:
"I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq - Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991."

Kerry now claims Saddam's "downfall has left America less secure." Oopsy: Here's his anti-Dean, anti-Saddam stand in December 2003, according to Newsday:
"Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."

Kerry now claims the decision to go into Iraq was a "colossal" failure. Yet on Aug. 9, Kerry said that had he known then what he knew now, he would still have voted for the use-of-force resolution, according to CNN:
"Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it's the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively."

Kerry now claims Saddam was not a "threat to our security." Here's what he said in January 2003, according to the L.A. Times: "If you don't believe Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me."

Kerry now claims Saddam's "capability to acquire weapons" was not reason enough for war. Yet according to the Congressional Record of Oct. 9, 2002, he called those who would leave the Iraqi dictator alone "naive to the point of grave danger."
And so on and so forth.

At least no one can say Kerry is two-faced. He has so many more faces than that.

Click on the link to see the source of the article. 14 Flip-Flops in One Speech

In honor of a real hero.

2004-09-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

I felt compelled to post this. It is so important that we do not forget what someone who had everything was willing to give up to protect this country.

A true American hero

by Dan WetzelApril 23, 2004

It is not how Pat Tillman died that makes him about as great of an American hero as we can possibly know.
It is how he lived.
It is not what he gave up, but how and why he gave it up. It's the fact that all those sports phrases that we casually throw around - like sacrifice and commitment and courage - actually meant something to him.
It is how an NFL player, living the American dream, chose not what his country could do for him, but what he could do for his country.
So not long after Sept. 11, 2001, he walked away from football, away from the money and glory of the NFL and, along with his minor league baseball-playing brother, took his considerable physical gifts to the Army Rangers.

Duty. Honor. Country.
Tillman, 27, was killed in action Thursday in Afghanistan, where coalition forces continue to search for Osama bin Laden.
Tillman is just one of hundreds of brave soldiers from around the globe who have given their lives trying to help make ours safer since Sept. 11. Sadly, there will be more.
Maybe most telling about Tillman is that he, it would seem, would be embarrassed about articles like this, ones that focus on his passing rather than that of Army Spc. Christopher Gelineau, 23, of Portland, Maine, who was killed in an explosion outside Mosul, Iraq, on Tuesday.
Or Marvin Camposiles, 25, of Austell, Ga., Jonathan Hartman, 27, of Jacksonville, Fla., Michael McGlothin, 21, of Milwaukee, Wis., or Robert Henderson II, 33, of Alvaton, Ky. - among six Army personnel and four Marines killed Saturday in Iraq.
No, Tillman isn't a hero for dying, but for living. For putting his morals where his mouth was and not just enlisting, but doing it in the most humble and honorable way.
When he and his brother arrived at Georgia's Fort Benning to begin their training in July 2002 he "came in like everyone else, on a bus from a processing station," the base's public information officer said then. Tillman promptly turned down hundreds of requests for interviews and went about anonymously being a soldier.
No press. No fanfare. No "look at me" publicity stunts.
His move shocked professional sports, populated by so many of our most able-bodied Americans. Tillman was the only one to enlist from the NFL, which is fine - there is no shame in not enlisting.
But it is difficult to cheer ever again for a knucklehead like Simeon Rice who went on Jim Rome's radio show and said about Tillman, "He really wasn't that good, not really. He was good enough to play in Arizona, [but] that's just like the XFL."
After Rome stopped him, Rice finally relented. Sort of.
"I think it's very admirable, actually," Rice said. "You've got to give kudos to a guy like that because he did it for his own reasons. Maybe it's the Rambo movies, maybe it's Sylvester Stallone, Rocky, whatever compels him."
Or maybe it was just serving his country. Maybe it was being a part of a cause greater than his own self-interest. Maybe it was trying to help in a seemingly helpless situation.
In actuality, what Tillman did was no different than what thousands of other American men and women have done. The country needs them and they answer the call. He may have been the only one staring at a $3.6 million contract, but that's money.
This, obviously, is something more valuable than that.
Tillman probably would cringe at the outpouring of attention and affection that his death will bring. He didn't get into this for that. But if his death can remind Americans about the sacrifices of our soldiers, rich and poor, famous and faceless, then maybe something positive can come of it.
Our volunteer military has performed brilliantly overseas. They've served with great skill and made great sacrifices.
Not just the NFL millionaire. All of them.
It seems that is all Pat Tillman wanted to be. One part of the Army. Part of the Army of one.
"The quintessential definition of a patriot" is how John McCain, the Arizona senator and former prisoner of war in Vietnam described him.
And he was.
An American hero not for where and when he died, but how and why he lived.

Cardinals Retire Pat Tillman's Jersey

2004-09-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

TEMPE, Ariz. - The Arizona Cardinals honored Pat Tillman on Sunday in an emotional halftime ceremony that featured the fallen player's widow and other members of his family.

In her first public comments since her husband's death, Marie Tillman thanked all who had supported the family.

"It really helps us knowing that his spirit and memory live on in all of you," she said to the rousing cheers of the crowd.

She was joined at midfield by Tillman's brother Richard and his parents. Cardinals vice president Michael Bidwill presented Tillman's widow with a framed Pat Tillman jersey.

A giant No. 40 jersey was unfurled in Sun Devil Stadium, where Tillman played as a star linebacker for Arizona State and an overachieving safety for the Cardinals.

Tillman left a lucrative contract in the NFL in 2002 to join the Army Rangers with his brother Kevin. He was killed April 22 in the Khost province of Afghanistan, the first NFL player to die in combat since the Vietnam War. He was 27.

A military investigation concluded he was likely killed mistakenly by fire from other U.S. troops.

In a video message on the giant screen at the stadium, President Bush praised Tillman and others who have died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"As much as Pat Tillman loved competing on the football field, he loved America even more," Bush said. "...Courageous and humble, a loving husband and son, a devoted brother and a fierce defender of liberty. Pat Tillman will always be remembered and honored in our country."

Tillman was shown talking about what the flag meant to him in an interview conducted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"My great-grandfather was at Pearl Harbor," Tillman said. "A lot of my family has done far more. I really haven't done a damn thing as laying my butt on the line like that, so I have a great deal of respect for those that have, and what our flag stands for."

Also speaking via video, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said of Tillman, "While many of us may be blessed to live a longer life than Pat did, few of us will ever live a better one."

Every NFL player wore a decal bearing Tillman's No. 40 this weekend. The Cardinals will wear it all season. No. 40 commemorative pins were distributed to everyone who came to Sunday's game.

"We're very humbled," Tillman's brother-in-law Alex Garwood told reporters before the game. "I don't presume to speak for him certainly, but if he were here, you can bet that he would be looking each and every one of you in the eye and saying 'Thank you.'"

The NFL and Cardinals are donating proceeds from the sale of Tillman's jersey to the foundation that bears his name. Garwood is the executive director of the fledgling foundation. Kevin and Marie Tillman serve on its board of directors.

"First and foremost, we're going to carry Pat's legacy forward," Garwood said. "We're going to do that by inspiring others to make positive change in themselves and the world around them."

He said the foundation already had received personal checks from about 450 people. Some wrote the word "hero" at the bottom of the check.

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